‘Wasim Akram still better’ says Starc after left-arm wicket landmark

BRISBANE: Australia pace bowler Mitchell Starc said Thursday he could not be compared with Wasim Akram after he surpassed the Pakistani great as the leading left-arm pace bowler in Test history.

Starc’s six-wicket haul on day one of the second Ashes Test in Brisbane gave him 418 Test wickets, four more than Akram.

“Wasim’s still a far better bowler than I am,” said Starc.

“So as far as I’m concerned, he’s still the pinnacle of left-armers and certainly he’s right up there with the best bowlers to ever play the game.

“It’s nice to be spoken of up around that, but I’ll just try to keep churning a few out.”

Starc led the Australian attack in the day-night match at the Gabba in the absence of his usual strike partners Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, who are injured, and spinner Nathan Lyon, who was dropped.

“I don’t think I’ve ever played in an attack without one of the three of them playing,” Starc said.

“So it’s a little bit different in that regard.”

The 35-year-old, who has taken 16 wickets in the series, was the only Australian bowler to trouble the English batsmen consistently on Thursday.

Starc went past Akram’s mark when he bagged England’s Harry Brook, caught at slip, for his 415th wicket and third of the innings.

Akram, widely recognised as the greatest left-arm bowler the sport has seen, played 104 Tests for his 414 wickets.

Starc, who made his debut at the Gabba 14 years ago, was playing his 102nd Test and shows no sign of slowing down.

He took a career-best 7-58 in the first innings of the opening Ashes Test at Perth.

Starc is now 15th on the all-time wicket-taker list after moving above Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh’s total of 417.

He now has South Africa’s Shaun Pollock (421) in his sights and New Zealand’s Richard Hadlee (431).

He needs just 16 more wickets to go past the most prolific left-arm bowler of all-time – Sri Lanka spinner Rangana Herath, who claimed 433 wickets.