Mitchell Starc enters the 100 club

PL on Starc becoming only the second Australian quick after McGrath to make the milestone

Mitchell Starc is refusing to get caught up in any hype around his 100th Test matc.

"Oh please, don't sell me out"
Said the man with the hammer hammering the anvil
"I've been walking on the road of rocks
I keep on hammering, keep on hammering
Keep on hammering, hammering the anvil

Hammer Song, Sensational Alex Harvey

Mitchell Starc will play his 100th Test match this week, at Sabina Park, Kingston, home ground for bowling greats Courtney Walsh and Michael Holding, both of whom have an end named after them.

The Australian great has, despite opening the bowling for his country for much of the last decade, somewhat slipped under the radar on his way here to the place where he must surely be mentioned among the game’s greats. Very few have managed to be so consistently excellent across all three formats or have managed such a career in Test match cricket.

He’s crept up on us a bit. Perhaps it’s by design.

Shy to a fault, he’s happy to be playing the match as far from the spotlight as possible, but even with just a handful of reporters on hand to mark the moment, he’s keen to deflect the attention away. He says it’s “poetic” that he should bring up the milestone playing in a pink ball match. That’s one way of putting it. Few have been more critical of the pink variety, although his early mentor and namesake, Mitchell Johnson, did famously make the decision to throw in the towel on a flat track in Perth because worse was to follow: the day-night match in Adelaide.

Starc and Johnson share an old-school irascibility. Bowling is hard work; they’d rather just get on with it and not be bothered. It’s something you do, not something you talk about. They’re not for complaining about their lot.