Starc’s 160.4 km/h delivery today certainly makes it the fastest ever ball bowled in a Test match.
Advertisement
The left-arm paceman fell simply in need of becoming a member of the “one hundred miles per hour” membership because the velocity of the yorker, which was dug out for no run by New Zealand’s Ross Taylor, interprets into the imperial scale at ninety nine.sixty seven mph.
Another ex-pacer Damien Fleming said: Starcy hits 160.4kph and another chance hits the turf.
Taylor’s knock surpassed his career-best 217 not out against the West Indies two years ago, replaced Martin Crowe’s 188 at the Gabba 30 years ago as the best by a New Zealander against Australia and is behind only David Warner (253) and Matthew Hayden (380) at the WACA.
Mitchell Starc is happy to share the mantle of Australia’s spearhead, saying no one member of the side’s pace attack deserves the title.
Despite these recorded results there is argument that a few bowlers are in fact quicker than recorded, Michael Holding said that if the record is 161.3 then Jeff Thomson was at least 10 per cent faster.
Starc looked visibly annoyed by McMillan’s comments and asked him to face the bowler in the nets tomorrow so as to get a clear idea of the speed of his deliveries. “It was coming out nicely and I was trying to bowl fast, and it was nice that it was rather consistent as well”.
“Yeah, it felt really good”.
“A couple of the spinners’ deliveries were quite high as well so I wonder if there was a technical problem”.
At drinks, replying to Australia’s first inning score of 559, New Zealand are at 459/5, with Taylor and Doug Bracewell remained unbeaten at 212 and 19 respectively.
Nathan Lyon fumbled an edge at third slip when McCullum was on five, and Taylor was on 137 when Mitch Marsh fingered a diving catch at gully.
Advertisement
Shaun Tait (161.1kph) and Brett Lee (161.1kph) are other Australian bowlers who have been clocked at more than 160kph.
