At 4:06pm local time in Perth, Mitchell Starc uprooted James Vince’s off stump with the “ball of the Ashes and the summer” according to Test legend Shane Warne
Starc, bowling from around the wicket from the Prindiville Stand End, fired down a 143.9kph thunderbolt that jagged off a snaking crack like a leg-break and cannoned into Vince’s off stump.
That’s called a JAFFA! What a delivery @mstarc56 you reminded me of my bowling days and I enjoyed it to the hilt! You made left armers proud! @CricketAus — Wasim Akram (@wasimakramlive) December 17, 2017
That’s called a JAFFA! What a delivery @mstarc56 you reminded me of my bowling days and I enjoyed it to the hilt! You made left armers proud! @CricketAus
— Wasim Akram (@wasimakramlive) December 17, 2017
“Not much James Vince could have done about that,” Warne said on Wide World of Sports commentary.
“He might have just tried to hit it a fraction square. But that’s an absolute peach from the big left-arm quick, Mitchell Starc.”
Shortly after Warne posted a replay of the Starc’s delivery on Instagram with a caption that read: “Ball of the #Ashes and the summer. Starc is on fire here in the west!”
Former England captain Michael Vaughan also called it the “ball of the 21st century”.
Yep absolute seed ? #ashes https://t.co/yaesFNgjGn — Mitchell Johnson (@MitchJohnson398) December 17, 2017
Yep absolute seed ? #ashes https://t.co/yaesFNgjGn
— Mitchell Johnson (@MitchJohnson398) December 17, 2017
Former Australia captain Michael Clarke said Vince could not have done anything to stop that delivery.
“As a right-handed batsman facing that, he drags you into having to play,” Clarke told WWOS.
“You feel like you have to play every ball.
“When that ball swings away that’s when you get the outside edge.
“Unfortunately for Vince, he was looking to hit the ball with the angle to the leg side and it hits the crack and takes out middle and off stump. He hasn’t done much wrong there.
“You can say play straight but that’s unplayable.”
There is perhaps not better judge of magic, unplayable deliveries than Warne.
In 1993 at Old Trafford, Warne bamboozled England veteran Mike Gatting with a ball that drifted, pitched outside leg stump, spun sharply and clipped the top of the right-hander’s off stump.
The delivery to dismiss Gatting has gone down in the history books as “The Ball of the Century” but Starc has made a strong case for the ball of the 21st century.
