India vs Australia: Give me pink! Mitchell Starc back at his destructive best in Adelaide Test

When news broke of Josh Hazlewood being ruled out with an injury, a lot of Indian fans rejoiced. Their team had won in Perth, unexpectedly and by a huge margin of nearly 300 runs, and now Hazlewood, Australia’s best bowler by miles in Perth, was out of the equation.

As too, they thought, was Mitchell Marsh. His body had never really recovered after surgery on his ankle more than a year ago, and there were doubts about how much he could bowl or whether he would play at all.

But come match day, Marsh was fit enough to play. And we have yet to see what he has to offer and whether his body holds up.

But what we did see was Mitchell Starc with the pink ball. Now it’s fairly obvious to those who have been following his career that Starc is a different beast with the pink ball and under the lights. His career average in Tests is 27.71; with the pink ball, it is an incredible 18.34. And we saw that in the opening session, as he got Yashasvi Jaiswal—India’s star with the bat in Perth—out LBW first ball. It seemed like the writing was on the wall.

Shubman Gill (31) and KL Rahul (37) held on through some luck and at times off-line bowling, and it seemed India would go into lunch only a wicket down. But, from 69/1, they went to 81/4. Starc came back to pick up Rahul and Virat Kohli (7). Hazlewood’s replacement Scott Boland got Gill trapped in front of the wickets. India lost their last three wickets for 12 runs.

This is even before the lights came on. Starc is not done yet.