Every time Mitchell Starc runs in the Kolkata Knight Riders’ purples this season, more than his craft, it’s the mind-boggling bid of Rs. 24.75 crore that is discussed.
Add to it the lanky left-arm pacer’s subdued first half of the Indian Premier League (IPL) season and the term “price-tag pressure” was being hurled more frequently than Starc’s accuracy with his lethal yorkers.
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On Friday night, at the Wankhede Stadium, however, Starc found his mojo. Not only did he get rid of Ishan Kishan with a trademark in-swinging yorker that crashed into the leg-stump but the left-armer wound up the game with three more scalps. The four-wicket spell – only his second such instance in IPL – truly marked his return to the tournament since 2015.
Having conceded nearly two runs a ball this season, Starc did not hesitate in spelling out the challenges for bowlers due to the Impact Player rule.
“The Impact Player rule changes things a fair bit. Everyone gets to bat a lot deeper having a batting and a bowling XI. There’s a lot made of that rule throughout the tournament and there’s been a lot of high scores, which is the nature of the wickets and the grounds we play on here. That Impact Player rule has had a fair part to play in that, when you gonna have batters and batting all-rounders come in at 8 or 9, it’s a long batting line-up,” Starc said.
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“There’s no fear in the PowerPlay when all you have do is to clear the infield and score runs. Certainly there has been some really good batting, it’s not just the rules that play a part there. There’s been some fantastic scoring, some fantastic partnerships and some individual brilliance with the bat. On the flipside, we have got the World Cup coming next month, there’s no Impact Player rule, so whether that affects the scores is yet to be seen.”
And has he succumbed under the price-tag pressure?
“I didn’t set my price tag, so it is what it is,” he said.
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