After grabbing 4 for 42 in the first match of the tri-series against England, Mitchell Starc bettered it against India by registering his best ODI bowling figures of 6 for 43 at the MCG.
Starc lived up to the billing perfectly in the absence of Mitchell Johnson and after his brilliant performance, said he is enjoying playing stand-in lead in Australia’s bowling attack.
"We all know our roles really well. When Mitchell Johnson is back, he will bowl fast and will be aggressive, so we are all trying to pick up the slack,” Starc said after bowling Australia to a four-wicket win. “It will be great to have him back but in his absence I like this role. It is great to take wickets while trying to bowl fast and doing my role for the team.
"When Mitch comes back at some point, our roles might change, some guys might miss out and some others might come in. In the meantime though I am taking it game by game," he said.
Starc began by removing Shikhar Dhawan in the first over of the match and Gurinder Sandhu followed suit by getting rid of Ajinkya Rahane.
Rohit Sharma (138) and Suresh Raina (51) then resurrected the Indian innings by adding 126 runs for the third wicket. Rohit was on song as he notched up his sixth ODI century. However, once Starc broke the stand by removing Raina in the 35th over, India lost way and ended up with 268 from a position where they looked good for 300.
"India played some good cricket tonight. But we took some key wickets at key moments to restrict them to under 300 and it was a good bowling effort from us," Starc said.
"They pulled it back during the chase after we were 200-odd for 2 and they got on top of us. But it was a fantastic finish to the game and it is good to finish on the right side.
We were in some bother today as India are a good side but we pulled through. So it's good for us."
