The Spin | First-over destroyer Mitchell Starc deserves place among Australia’s greats
When I close my eyes at night, Mitchell Starc is at the top of his run,It might be punishment for forgetting to vote for him in the Guardian’s all-time Ashes players list,His 6ft 6in frame elongates and stretches until he’s uncomfortably filling my mind’s eye and then the legs start, a nightmare-beautiful rhythmic run,The arms piston, the eyes steady, the head as still as a marble mantelpiece,He’s a cheetah in giant white wristbands, a moon-marauding wolf, a river of melted chocolate, that expensive, unpalatable, 95% stuff.
Through the noise of the crowd, his feet crunch across the grass, like the president’s shiny shoes on the West Wing floor over the Brothers in Arms soundtrack to Two Cathedrals.And then the delivery: one huge stride of a giant right leg and the arm catapulting over, pure momentum, pure balance, pure speed.If England were counting on the 35-year-old Starc stumbling over the hill in this series, it was an assumption too many.Like Jimmy Anderson before him, Starc is ageing like the finest of racehorses – those seven wickets for 58 in the first innings at Perth were his best Test figures.He walked off the field as player of the match, with 10 in the game for the third time in his career, though this time in less than two days.
As Rory Burns could testify, Starc bowls a mean match opener.In 2021 he was famously circling at the top of his mark waiting for the umpires to call play at the Gabba, before toppling Burns with a pitch-perfect inswinger very first ball, to start the series as it meant to go on.Downhill fast.This time around, England did at least last five balls before Crawley threw himself at a perfect length delivery and Usman Khawaja did the rest at slip, albeit at the second time of asking.When Starc removed Crawley in the second innings, courtesy of that momentum-defying mid-air body swerve and snatch to his left, it was the 21st time he had taken a wicket in his first over of an innings in his Test career.
Adam Lyth is the third Englishman to make up the hitlist – watch them all and weep here.Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Crawley all fell to Starc twice at Perth, for three ducks and a grand total of 16 runs.And Starc’s hold over Stokes grows ever tighter – that brute of a delivery in the second innings, angling in, shimmying away, making it 11 Test dismissals, five of them crashing chords knocking out his stumps.Kerry O’Keeffe has called Starc “one of the most underrated cricketers Australia have produced,” and when you look at the figures, on top of the aesthetics, it is hard to disagree.In the first session of the first day, he passed 100 Ashes wickets – squaring up Joe Root, as you asked.
Of all the fast bowlers who have 100 wickets against England, Starc, now 35, is the only one who made his debut in the 21st century – against New Zealand at Brisbane in 2011.He was only the second Australian fast bowler to take 400 wickets, behind Glenn McGrath, and of Australians, only McGrath, Nathan Lyon and Shane Warne lie above him in the Test wicket-taking pantheon.His fellow left-armer Wasim Akram (25) is the only bowler with more five-wicket hauls than Starc’s 17.He is one half of a disgustingly talented power couple with Australia women’s captain Alyssa Healy.And he’s nice.
And he’s modest.And he has things in proportion.“It’s another game,” he sniffed before proceedings began.“I actually said this not long ago to Alyssa, a few months ago I was playing a Test match in the West Indies, I didn’t have a single message.This week I’ve had about 55, so what’s the difference? It’s the same sort of game.
”But he might have been making mischief when he was asked before the Ashes to name his top three wickets,The first was a yorker to Stokes during the 2019 World Cup,The other two involved Brendon McCullum – his first Test wicket in 2011, and an inswinging yorker to kill the World Cup final of 2015,Brad Haddin summed up Starc well in one of the many post-Perth post-mortems held in the three empty days England kindly cleared in the calendar,“He’s at the top of his game, he stood up at all big moments.
It was hugely impressive, with an inexperienced attack.You want to keep the stumps in play, and that’s what he did throughout the whole game.I think he bowled smart, with clear plans, at times he took the ball away from the English batters knowing they’d come nice and hard.”And all this while holding up the Australian attack, his bowling buddies Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood watching from the stands.Now they’ve both been spotted bowling in the nets for Australia.
England had their chance at Perth.That sound you can hear, that thudding of new boots on the Brisbane turf, that glimpse of a pink ball under floodlights – it’s the cavalry.This is an extract from the Guardian’s weekly cricket email, The Spin.To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
Labour is still in a muddle on North Sea oil and gas | Nils Pratley
Labour’s manifesto commitment on North Sea oil and gas production was a fudge. On one hand, it said no new licences “to explore new fields” would be granted. On the other, it said existing fields would be managed “for the entirety of their lifespan” in a way “that does not jeopardise jobs”.The formulation raised many questions. Where, exactly, would the line be drawn between a new field and an existing field? What would be the approach to protecting workers when, as now, North Sea jobs are estimated to be going at a rate of 1,000 a month according to analysis by Robert Gordon University?The thinking is only slightly easier to understand now
Ed Miliband confirms crackdown on North Sea exploration – but new drilling will continue
The government has ruled out new North Sea oil and gas exploration or lower taxes for fossil fuel companies as it struggles to protect workers from the industry’s collapse.In a strategy paper, Ed Miliband confirmed the crackdown on new North Sea exploration – although the energy secretary will still allow new offshore fossil fuel projects to move ahead as long as they are linked to existing fields.The strategy was released alongside Rachel Reeves’ budget statement, which ended months of speculation over the future of the North Sea industry by confirming the government’s intention to ban new oil and gas licences to explore new fields, and keep tax rates in place.The Labour party swept to power with a promise to end new exploration drilling, alongside a pledge to work with oil and gas companies to manage the North Sea’s remaining lifespan.The government hopes that by allowing “tie-back” projects that are linked to existing schemes it can strike a balance between protecting thousands of North Sea jobs and meeting the UK’s climate commitments
ChatGPT firm blames boy’s suicide on ‘misuse’ of its technology
The maker of ChatGPT has said the suicide of a 16-year-old was down to his “misuse” of its system and was “not caused” by the chatbot.The comments came in OpenAI’s response to a lawsuit filed against the San Francisco company and its chief executive, Sam Altman, by the family of California teenager Adam Raine.Raine killed himself in April after extensive conversations and “months of encouragement from ChatGPT”, the family’s lawyer has said.The lawsuit alleges the teenager discussed a method of suicide with ChatGPT on several occasions, that it guided him on whether a suggested method would work, offered to help him write a suicide note to his parents and that the version of the technology he used was “rushed to market … despite clear safety issues”.According to filings at the superior court of the state of California on Tuesday, OpenAI said that “to the extent that any ‘cause’ can be attributed to this tragic event” Raine’s “injuries and harm were caused or contributed to, directly and proximately, in whole or in part, by [his] misuse, unauthorised use, unintended use, unforeseeable use, and/or improper use of ChatGPT”
Europe loosens reins on AI – and US takes them off
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, writing to you from an American grocery store, where I’m planning my Thanksgiving pies.In tech, the European Union is deregulating artificial intelligence; the United States is going even further. The AI bubble has not popped, thanks to Nvidia’s astronomical quarterly earnings, but fears persist. And Meta has avoided a breakup for a similar reason as Google
Commonwealth Games hosts Ahmedabad vow not to repeat Delhi 2010 farce
Ahmedabad has vowed not to make the same mistakes as Delhi in 2010 and to “lay the foundations for the next 100 years” after being confirmed as the host of the 2030 Commonwealth Games.Organisers said that 15 to 17 sports would feature in 2030 – up from the 10 that will feature in Glasgow next summer – including athletics, swimming, table tennis, bowls and netball. Twenty20 cricket and triathlon are on a provisional list, with the process to determine the final list of sports starting next month.The Indian city has been selected ahead of a rival bid from Abuja in Nigeria and was given final approval at Commonwealth Sport’s general assembly in Glasgow on Wednesday .With India heavily targeting the 2036 Summer Olympics, organisers were keen to stress the Commonwealth Games in the state of Gujarat would prove they could organise a large multi-sport event without any hiccups
Field of Dreams-like shrine to cricket built ‘from bud to bat’ – photo essay
Ian Tinetti watches the wind in his willows as Newstead’s opening batters prepare to take on Hepburn in the hamlet of Shepherds Flat. His self-made cricket ground is about the only thing that is flat in Victoria’s Central Highlands and, on a chilly November afternoon, the adjacent grove of English Willow makes it feel even more like the Yorkshire Dales.Visiting this Field of Dreams-like shrine to the game is like uncovering the interconnected layers of a Russian doll – bat making, the Hepburn area’s Swiss-Italian heritage, the history of Victorian cricket and Australian rules football, and also, appropriately, doll collecting.Cricket Willow’s origin can be traced back to an idle exchange during the 1902 Ashes Test at the MCG, when umpire Robert Crockett said to England captain Archie MacLaren that Australia did not cultivate its own bat willow.Above: Newstead and Hepburn meet in a Castlemaine & District Cricket Association match at the self-made ground at Cricket Willow
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