In a tournament that was completely dominated by the batsmen, aided no doubt by the ICC’s desire to make the matches more exciting for the fans by adopting new playing conditions that were almost draconian for the bowlers, it was really a testament to the amazing skills of Mitchell Starc that he emerged as the Man of the Tournament of the 2015 World Cup.
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In the 49 matches played in Australia and New Zealand, there were as many as 38 centuries made, including two double centuries, compared to only eight made in the whole of 1992 World Cup that played here. The batsmen have scored as strike rate of 89.3, compared to 66.5 when Pakistan won.
And yet, in between all the havoc that was being wreaked by the willow, there were two outstanding left-arm pacemen who showed again and again that there is still hope for the hapless bowlers – Starc and New Zealand’s Trent Boult.
Mitchell Starc named as player of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015. #CWC15Final #CWC15 #AUSvNZ pic.twitter.com/SVFAt0i3Vg
— ✌ #CWC’15 ✌ (@abdulmoiz1996) March 29, 2015
Both emerged as the joint highest wicket-takers in the tournament with 22 – but Starc edged out Boult because he got it is eight matches (group match against Bangladesh was washed out) compared to Boult’s nine.
More importantly, he was the only bowler to have an economy rate of less than four – 3.5 in 63.5 overs bowled, while Boult’s economy was 4.36. The second most miserly bowler in the tournament – Daniel Vettori – was a full 0.54 points away at 4.04.
When asked yesterday how he managed to pick wickets, which meant he bowled an aggressive line and length, and yet keep such a tight economy rate, Starc attributed it to team effort rather than the fact that he worked extremely hard to throughout the Aussie summer to get his bowling right.
“I think it’s been probably a bit of luck involved, but I think we’ve all done it really well. I think we have all complemented each other throughout the whole tournament,” said Starc, who averaged 10.18 and had a best figure of 6-28 in the unforgettable group match against New Zealand where he almost led his side to an improbable win despite defending a meager total of 151.
“Look, it’s been awesome (with the Australian bowling attack). We have got guys who do things differently in the 15, we have guys who can swing it, guys who can bowl in the 150s. Jimmy (Faulkner) comes in and uses variations better than most people. I think we’ve covered all bases with our bowling attack, which helps.”
On his plan to counter the ultra-attacking Brendon McCullum, whom he removed in the first over of the day to give his side the best possible start, Starc said: “We have watched him a fair bit through the tournament and he is pretty destructive. He has been a key player for them right from the beginning, and he’s been fantastic to get them off to great starts.
“I think after that game in New Zealand, we knew we had to sort of assess him as he went because he’s very unpredictable. It was a bit of a planning game with Craig McDermott (bowling coach) about just bowling in pace and yorker to him first up. I am not sure how that first one missed, but I got lucky the third one hit. There’s a lot of luck involved, but just nice to see that plan come off.”
