Starc’s ‘spell from hell’ sets the tone for Ashes 2025-26

Mitchell Starc’s fiery 7-58 — a “spell from hell” — sets the tone for Ashes 2025-26 as England crumble early.

Heading into the opening Ashes 2025-26 Test at the Optus Stadium in Perth, Australia were without their two premier pacers – Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood. Winning the Ashes down under is extremely rare for England. This side under Ben Stokes has a golden opportunity to lift the urn come January 2026. For the hosts, their eyes were on Mitchell Starc, who looked a bit rusty in the Sheffield Shield clash ten days ago.

But when it mattered the most, Starc looked the most threatening on the opening Ashes day. The visitors got blown away by Starc’s fiery opening spell of 3/17 in six overs, including three maidens. None of those 42 legal deliveries saw the speedometer go below 140 kmph.

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England’s top order panicked in the face of Mitchell Starc’s opening spell
Winning the toss, Stokes decided to go with history at the ground and elected to bat first. There were several nightmarish starts for England in Ashes history down under, including Steve Harmison’s first ball to the second slip or Rory Burns losing his leg stump. However, that wasn’t the case in this trip as Zak Crawley tapped the first ball from Starc with an open bat-face towards point.

The third ball was shaped away from the opening batter, who went for a booming drive through covers and got beaten. Starc realized the growing pressure on the Kent batter. He pushed the length a little up and brought it closer to the batter. Crawley tried to drive on the up with minimal foot movement and got a thick outside edge. Usman Khawaja juggled the ball to complete the catch at first slip.

Ben Duckett held his shape from the other end and continued to bat in his natural way. Scott Boland, sharing the new ball from the other end, struggled to find his line and length.

But Starc was breathing fire as he trapped Duckett in front of the stumps. It was a fuller length delivery that swung in on the middle and leg. The southpaw was caught in the crease as he looked to keep it out, but got beaten on the inside edge. Once the gap between bat and ball was confirmed, there was no doubt that the ball was crashing into the stumps.

It was the fourth time Starc picked up the wicket of Duckett in the longest format. The left-handed batter has managed only 112 runs in eight innings at 24.50 against the left-arm pacer.

Joe Root walked into the middle in the first 40 minutes. On his second delivery, he went for a tentative drive and was beaten for pace. Starc continued to challenge the corridor of uncertainty against the former England captain.

Root finally paid the price after failing to open his account in the first six balls. It was a back of a length delivery from Starc. After pitching on the leg stump, it seamed away to open the batter in his stance. Root played it with a closed bat-face, and a thick outside edge flew to the third slip.

Starc reached the 100th-wicket mark in Ashes with Root’s dismissal. He has now become the first left-arm pacer to reach this milestone, with Mitchell Johnson’s 87 wickets being the second best. Since Starc’s debut, he has also collected the third most wickets (100) in the Ashes, sitting behind Stuart Broad (133) and Nathan Lyon (110).

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England activate Bazball to display tiny fightback
When India won at Perth last year during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2024-25, they were bundled out for around 150 in the first innings. It shows that England were not totally out of the game. Once Starc’s opening spell was done, there was plenty to think about for Steven Smith, Australia’s stand-in captain. Boland and debutant Brendan Doggett didn’t look the part in the first session.

Ollie Pope and Harry Brook put up a fine 55-run stand for the fourth wicket. It could have been even stevens for the visitors had they not lost Pope before lunch.

England reached 105/4 in the first session on the opening day of the Ashes 2025-26.

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