I got off Twitter after home series against India; didn't care about others' opinion: Mitchell Starc

The four-match Test series between India and Australia is set to commence on December 17 in Adelaide. The visitors, led by Virat Kohli, had beaten the Aussies by 2-1 last time around and one man who had come under immense scrutiny in the series was Mitchell Starc. The left-arm pacer didn’t have a great series picking only 13 wickets in seven innings at a poor average of 34.53.

There were calls to drop him from the playing XI as well and the constant scrutiny over his performance had led to Starc getting off Twitter. He had also stopped reading others’ opinion about him while also deleting all his social media accounts. Mitchell Starc revealed that it helped him focus on his game again with a clear mindset.

“Since then (last home Test series against India) I’ve basically gotten off Twitter and not (been) reading anything really, and not really caring what other people’s opinions are. It’s just had me in a clearer mindset to focus on what I can control and bowl the way I want to bowl,” he said while speaking to ESPN’s The Cricket Monthly.

I just probably tuned into a lot of noise, says Mitchell Starc

Mitchell Starc always used the criticism as the motivation for him to do better on the field. He used to read the stuff written and said about him. But he isn’t the same now and admits to have allowed a lot of outside noise affect him as well. Having trustworthy people around him during this period has worked for the pace bowler.

“That’s certainly how I’ve approached it since and having people I trust around me, whether it’s talking to Alyssa (Healy, his partner) or having conversations with ‘Dre (Andre Adams, NSW bowling coach) or the staff around the group, or the players. I just felt I probably tuned into the noise too much, and I guess I went from someone who didn’t mind seeing or reading that sort of stuff and taking that as motivation to prove people wrong.

“Just with having multiple broadcasters and a whole bunch of radio and print and the rest, I probably read into that noise a bit too much,” he further added.