Mitchell Starc challenges Craig McMillan for a duel

Mitchell Starc challenges Craig McMillan for a duel: Mitchell Starc ruffled up Ross Taylor and Brendon McCullum today in a game of speed. Bowling above 150 kmph constantly in his spell, he crossed 160 kmph but just fell short of the magic number of bowling at a 100 mph. His fierce Yorker also resulted in chipping the toe end of New Zealand skipper McCullum’s bat. That was the speed he was bowling at, but wasn’t rewarded with wickets just then. This was the fastest delivery recorded in the history of test cricket.

As reported by ESPNCricinfo, Craig McMillan, the present coach of the New Zealand team, back in 2003 as a batsman faced a delivery by the Rawalpindi Express Shoaib Akhtar that clocked 161.3 kmph.

McMillan now questioned the technology used as he felt the ball bowled to Ross Taylor was just around the 150s. “I don’t know, maybe someone in the truck was having a bit of fun but that delivery came out of nowhere and looked pretty similar to a lot of deliveries throughout the day that were closer to 150 than 160. I’m not sure if maybe the wrong button was pushed, but you’d have to ask Ross whether it felt 10kph quicker than any other delivery he faced,” McMillan said.

When Starc heard of McMillan’s comments, he was not impressed, and cheekily challenged the opposition coach for a session in the nets to face him if he wants. Starc said, “I was trying to bowl quick. It was nice to have a nice run-up in and not have to jump up to the square, have a nice breeze. It was all sort of working nicely for the left-armers at this end. Nice to have some rhythm, have the ball coming out nicely. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a couple of wickets to go with it.”

Starc ended the day with figures of 2/83 and will look to come back strong and take the remaining New Zealand wickets tomorrow. The visitors head into the fourth day just 49 runs short of what had seemed an unreachable Australia total of 559 and it is to be seen what result is to come out on this flat deck of a surface of WACA.