Mitchell Starc
Smarting from the series defeat to India at home two summers ago, Australian speed merchant Mitchell Starc is ready to make amends in the upcoming four-match rubber against one of their biggest rivals, terming it a chance to "rectify" that.
Under Virat Kohli's captaincy, India humbled hosts Australia 2-1 in 2018-19 for their first series win Down Under after seventy years of trying.
"You never want to lose a series and you certainly never want to lose one in Australia," Starc told ESPN's The Cricket Monthly.
"India were just better than us throughout the (2018-19) series with bat and ball. Sure, we haven't hidden away from that. We needed to be better in all facets of the game and this summer's certainly a chance to rectify that," the pace ace added.
Having copped quite a bit of criticism in his career, including from the legendary Shane Warne, Starc is no longer out to prove people wrong and has adopted an approach to completely shun the outside noise.
Coming off a sensational 2019-20 when he took 45 wickets at 18.42 and a strike rate of 34.8, the pacer will lead Australia's charge with the new ball in Thursday's opening day-night Test against India.
"I just felt I probably tuned into the noise too much, and I guess I went from someone who didn't mind seeing or reading that sort of stuff and taking that as motivation to prove people wrong..."
"Just with having multiple broadcasters and a whole bunch of radio and print and the rest, I probably read into that noise a bit too much," he said.
Starc is no longer using criticism as motivation to spur him on.
"The expectations on the group, media-wise, were huge. I think I just found it was a lot of unnecessary time spent thinking about it or reading about it. "Going from someone who saw that as a motivation to prove people wrong, I probably bought into the noise too much, or started digging myself a bigger hole if I wasn't bowling the way I wanted to.
"Certainly, throughout that series as well … I felt like I had 47 different bowling coaches at one point and all these different opinions that I just didn't need to listen to," said Starc.
In 2019, he deleted his social media accounts in a move to turn off the constant noise from outside. "Since then (last last home Test series against India) I've basically gotten off Twitter and not (been) reading anything really, and not really caring what other people's opinions are.
"It's just had me in a clearer mindset to focus on what I can control and bowl the way I want to bowl. That's certainly how I've approached it since and having people I trust around me, whether it's talking to Alyssa (Healy, his partner) or having conversations with 'Dre (Andre Adams, NSW bowling coach) or the staff around the group, or the players."
