In the must-win encounter against India at T20 World Cup 2024 Super 8 stage, Mitchell Starc fell flat against skipper Rohit Sharma. Starc was taken to the cleaners at Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium, St Lucia as Rohit moved across and targetted the leg side boundary. Rohit hit Starc for four sixes in the 29-run over in his 92-run knock. Weeks after the onslaught, Starc explained why Rohit was able to dominate him.
“I’ve played a lot against him. He had a good tournament, especially in our game. I think he targeted that wind in St. Lucia as well. If you look at the runs from each end, one end went for a lot more than the other. I bowled from that end. I bowled five bad balls and he hit them all (four) for six,” the left-arm pacer said on the Willow Talk Cricket podcast.
After taking a beating with the new ball, Starc came back well. He dismissed Rohit in the 12th over. The opener scored 92 runs from just 41 balls. Starc also dismissed Suryakumar Yadav. He ended up conceding 45 runs from his quota of four overs. The 34-year-old was on target barring the 29-run over in the powerplay overs.
The target was chaseable
While Starc feels that the target of 206 was above par, he believes that it was chaseable on the 'best wicket' of West Indies in the tournament.
“We thought it was a little bit over par, but it was the best wicket in the World Cup which we played on in terms of runs scored. It wasn’t probably the quickest wicket in the West Indies but definitely the best wicket which we played on. Certainly chaseable. We were on target for a while but a couple of hiccups and some good bowling from them set us back,” he added.
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Starc disappointed over missing out on Afghanistan game
Starc also expressed his disappointment over him getting benched for Afghanistan game. Afghanistan created history as they beat Australia for the first time in international cricket. The T20 World Cup 2021 champions ended up getting knocked out of Super 8 stage as Afghanistan beat Bangladesh in a thrilling encounter to reach their first-ever semifinal at an ICC event.
"Just the match-up. They saw previous games on that ground in St Vincent with spin playing a big part. Obviously, Ash [Ashton Agar] and the left-arm [option] enticed them to make a change. It is what it is,” he said.
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