Mitchell Starc’s record-breaking series, 2025 season as 35-year-old champion fast bowler

Sixteen wickets in the first three innings of the series effectively earned victory for Australia in the absence of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.

Back-to-back man-of-the-match performances in Perth and Brisbane (where he changed play with bat and ball) were undoubtedly the highlights of the best campaign of Starc’s career.

In total, his 55 wickets in 2025 amounted to the best strike rate in Test history (at least 50 wickets in a calendar year).

As Cricinfo notes in its annual reviewOne wicket every 28.36 balls in 11 Tests in 2025 was the best on record, eclipsing Waqar Younis’s 1993 mirabilis (29.5) and Jasprit Bumrah’s 2024 blitz (30.1).

Starc played every Test available to him last year. It’s no surprise considering he’s only missed four of Australia’s 53 matches in the last five years.

Such a combination of stamina and pace is very rare in fast bowling. Cricinfo once again pointed out that Starc’s wicket-taking spree since he turned 35 last January has left him in thin air.

Only three bowlers – Courtney Walsh, Sydney Barnes and Glenn McGrath – have taken more wickets in a year aged 35 and over. They are all champions.

But at that age, Walsh and McGrath were at least 10 km/h slower than Starc’s cruising speed of over 140 km/h. Barnes was again significantly slower.

But Starc’s late-career adoption of the wobble stitch made him a more accurate and particularly dangerous client.

New ball strike or lack thereof once sealed his fate until reverse swing was found. Now the first one is a real offensive weapon; struck less frequently for greater impact.

A favorite of the new “Fox Bio” toy in Fox Sports’ coverage, Starc’s wrist action creates his tempo relatively efficiently, allowing him to maintain pace where someone like Jofra Archer might weaken throughout the day.

With 31 wickets, the Compton-Miller Medal on Thursday and his 36th birthday looming, Starc noted that he was sacrificing T20 internationals to preserve his body and extend his Test career.

Beyond a game of golf, a BBL appearance or two and joining his wife Alyssa Healy in the upcoming international summer, “I don’t have too many plans,” he said.

Of course, there is the 2027 Ashes tour and five Tests against India ahead of it, but Starc will not issue such a distant statement of intent.

However, considering the way of his life, there was one point he had to emphasize: “There is so much that has been done on this subject. [this Australian XI’s] age profile”.

“Sometimes I think the experience through this series is a really good thing,” Starc said.

“I think we’ve seen guys prove that it doesn’t matter how old you are if you’re still playing your part or if you’re good enough… we’ve seen the results of this series.”