Déjà vu as hobbled Starc castles Stokes again

Given the national euphoria inspired by Ben Stokes' golden summer four years ago, it might have taken the allrounder a beat to recognise the sense of déjà vu when Mitchell Starc tore through his defences at The Oval on Thursday afternoon.

Only weeks before Stokes won the 2019 World Cup final off his own bat, England's middling group-stage form was capped when Starc tailed a searing yorker back into the left-hander's stumps to deliver the game's knockout blow and seal an Australian win at Lord's.

The act of Stokes theatrically dropping his bat and then kicking it across his crease would not have been out of place on the West End.

Four years on, in whites instead of colours and on the other side of London's River Thames, the similarities were striking.

Again, Starc's seam position was angled towards the slips, only this time the red Dukes was on a Test length swinging conventionally away from Stokes, instead of a white Kookaburra aimed at his toes and shifting in with a hint of reverse-swing.

The result, however, was the same.

Stokes' off-stump was rattled, he wore the same 'why does this keep happening to me?' look and, just like the 2019 ball at Lord's, the leg bail remained eerily intact on top of undisturbed middle and leg-stumps.

It was a reminder that now, like then, Starc can produce deliveries that are too good for even the world's best.

The fact Starc was doing so with possible damage to his left shoulder joint, which he has refused to get medical scans on after hurting in the fourth Test, only adds to the story.

Not that he fancied reliving the delivery.

"It swung a little bit and hit the top of off," was all the unfailingly modest Starc would say about it at stumps after his 4-82 helped rout England for 283.

The Starc-Stokes battle goes way back – the pair clashed when Stokes was controversially given out handled the ball in a 2015 one-dayer – while Starc also had his measure during the first innings of the Lord's Test last month when he dismissed him with a brilliant lifting delivery.

The fact Stokes then hit back with the innings of the series, an extraordinary 155 in a losing cause, only reinforced how important Starc's latest wonder-ball to him was.

"You probably wouldn't put him (in the same category) as many others," Starc said of Stokes.

"We've seen that this series and the way he played at Lord's was next level. The way he's played throughout the series with the tail, I think we were pretty happy to get the tail out there (batting with) the tail today.

"He's just able to find different places in the field to hit the ball. There have times where we've been all on the boundary and he clears the rope.

"We know he's a class act … For us to get him in there early when the wicket is doing a bit – the wicket and the overheads helped our case. Time and time again he's (shown he is) a class performer."

Medical staff believe Starc hurt his acromioclavicular (AC) joint after an awkward fall during the Headingley Test, but the 33-year-old stoically refused to get an X-ray ahead of the final match of a six-Test tour he has played all but one match of.

His captain Pat Cummins has marvelled at his pain threshold.

"I'm not interested in getting it scanned or anything like that. That (damage to the AC joint) is what the doc and physio think's the case," said Starc.

"We'll worry about that at the end of the week. There's a bit of discomfort there … Nothing major. I can still bowl and do what I need to do.

"I've played for over 10 years and been through a few niggles and injuries through the time.

"There have been times when I've left the team a man down, or other people have. We all push through niggles and whatnot so it's no different this week, just a little bit of discomfort."

While the day-one dismissal of Stokes had hallmarks of 2019, what is different from four years ago is Starc's standing in the Test side.

The left-armer's status as one of the best 50-over bowlers of all-time had been confirmed with a record 27 wickets in that World Cup, but his selection for just one of the five Ashes Tests that followed underlined that he was not yet the complete package as a bowler.

His return for the ensuing UK tour has highlighted just how far he has come.

His mastery of the wobble seam delivery, which gives him an extra weapon with the older ball, and embracing that he will never be as economical as pace partners Pat Cummins or Josh Hazlewood, has seen Starc entrench himself as a truly indispensable weapon.

It is not just that his four victims on day one of the fifth Test saw him shoot to the top of the series' wicket-taking charts having now claimed 19 wickets at 27.52.

Having taken the same number of wickets during the preceding Ashes series at home in 2021-22, Starc has highlighted that he has been able to add a consistency and confidence to his bowling in recent years that had not always been there.

Throughout this time, though, he has maintained the ability to send down the odd unplayable ball.

2023 Qantas Ashes Tour of the UK

First Test: Australia won by two wickets

Second Test: Australia won by 43 runs

Third Test: Thursday July 6-Monday July 10, Headingley

Fourth Test: Match drawn

Fifth Test: Thursday July 27-Monday 31, The Oval

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Todd Murphy, Michael Neser, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, David Warner

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Rehan Ahmed, James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood