MUMBAI: Mitchell Starc's celebrations were muted after he had lit up Ishan Kishan's stumps. All he did while walking back to his bowling mark was exchange a couple of high-fives with his Kolkata Knight Riders teammates but the facial expression remained stoic.
Deep down he must be gutted at the lack of consistency. Why shouldn't he? After all at Rs 24.75 crore he is the costliest pick ever in the history of the IPL. On Friday, against the Mumbai Indians, the Australian left-arm quickie delivered his best figures of the season-4/33-to seal KKR's 24-run win.
The belters that have been dished out in this tournament has had an impact on bowlers' economy rate and Starc is not immune to it. He was conceding close 12 runs per over before the MI match. KKR will hope that their ace pacer maintains a high pitch from here on.
Barring Jasprit Bumrah, who has conceded at 6.25 this season, none of the top bowlers have managed to control the batters regularly.
Having mostly been used in Powerplay and death overs, Starc has taken 11 wickets in nine games at an economy rate of 11.40 and strike rate of 17.36.
Starc, too, admitted on Friday that he was off the boil in the beginning. "As T20 cricket doesn't always go the way you want it to go, and of course I wanted to go a bit better at the start but I am not the only bowler going for runs. The fact we sit second and building towards the more important games at the back end and are playing some good cricket, hopefully I can be a part of it too," said Starc.
He added that the 'Impact Player' rule has made batters bolder and take extra risk. "The Impact Player rule changes things a fair bit. Everyone gets to bat a lot deeper having a batting and a bowling XI. I guess 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. Impact Player rule has had a fair part to play in that. There's no fear in the Powerplay when all you have to do is to clear the infield and score runs. (At the same time) there has been some good batting."
With the T20 World Cup less than a month away, Starc felt that with the rule not present there, captains will "have to think a bit tactically when they have just 11 players" at their disposal and "allrounders will come into play" much more than in the IPL.
There is hardly any gap between IPL playoffs and the T20 World Cup but the 34-year-old isn't worried about it.
"It's T20 cricket, it's not as demanding as Tests. Physically, it won't be a problem. You're playing some high-quality cricket leading into the WC, a lot of players at this tournament are going to be at the WC. In that regard, it's a great thing to see and test your skills. In terms of time (between two tournaments), that's part and parcel of international cricket," he said.
