Australia’s veteran pacer Mitchell Starc has been in the making headlines once again for his comment on playing for coquetry rather than franchise cricket. As per him, playing for his nation means a lot to him instead of going for franchise cricket just for money. The lethal left-arm pacer has played two seasons in the IPL for Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2014-15.
“I don’t regret any of it, money will come and go but I’m very grateful for the opportunities I’ve had. Over a hundred years of Test cricket and there’s been less than 500 men who have played it for Australia, that in itself makes it very special to be a part of it,” Starc was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
“There’s nothing I love more in cricket than to sit back with my teammates at the end of a Test win and reflect on the success we’ve had that week,” he said.
“To be able to pull on the baggy green with a lot of my close mates, guys I’ve grown up in the game with. I mean, franchise cricket is great, but you can be bought or sold or traded in 12 months, whereas this is an opportunity that I’ve been fortunate enough to have over 10 years now,” he added.
Talking about the WTC final 2023 where India played Australia ended with Kangaroos winning the title by 209 runs on Sunday at the Oval in London. Earlier, team India won the toss and asked Australia to bat first where Mohaamed Siraj exploited the overcast conditions and picked the early wicket of Usman Khawaja. But still, Australia ended up putting 469 runs on the boards with the help of Travis Head and Steve Smith’s century.
It was Ajinkya Rahane and Shardul Thakur who starred with the bat and helped India to reach 296 in the first innings in reply to Australia’huge total. During the second innings, India tried to pull off a heist but failed miserably as they were restricted to just 234 runs while chasing a total of 444 runs.