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The English team's Mitchell problem stretches back a long time.

It began with the sheer pace of Mitchell Johnson in 2013, and has carried on through the magical left-arm pace of Starc.

In the 2025-26 Ashes series, Starc has claimed 26 wickets - excelling in the absence of pace colleagues sometimes more highly rated.

Four more scalps in the fifth Test in Sydney and his series tally will be the most successful by any bowler in an Ashes series since Johnson over a decade ago.

The Path to Resilience Resulted In A Prolific Career of Starc

The Summer of Starc - the 35-year-old has also scored more runs than three of England's top order with the bat - is the peak of a Test career founded on durability, wicket-taking skill and a keenness to evolve.

Over the past month and a half he has moved ahead of a host of bowling legends and, most significantly, the great Wasim Akram on the all-time Test wicket-takers' list.

By nudging down Wasim, Starc became the leading left-arm seamer in Test history.

And when he takes the field at his home ground for the fifth Test this week, it will be the 27th straight Australia Test in a row in which he has played - a wider run of four Tests missed from the past fifty-six.

The days of a 20-year-old Starc being told to "harden up" by then Australia coach Tim Nielsen are a distant memory.

"Back then it might have stung him a little bit and that is probably the role to test competitors and to try and get them to be stronger than they have been in the past," the former coach stated.

"It was probably one of the talks you have with a lot of rookie quicks, especially when they start to enter international cricket.

"There were a couple of times where he said he was a bit uncomfortable and might need a break.

"The message was simple than 'I think it's time we have got to discover how much your body can take before it breaks rather than pulling up in case it breaks.'"

What Makes Starc Such a Challenge to Face?

Such is the transformation, the national team's coach Andrew McDonald has talked up the possibility of Starc, the oldest of the world-class pace trio, touring England for the next Ashes series in England, by which time he will be thirty-seven.

Ray Lindwall, who played his last match in 1960, was the most recent Australian fast bowler to wear a Test cap beyond his 37th birthday.

Achieving this would give Starc the chance to join cricket's 500-wicket club and become only the fifth pace bowler to take 500 wickets.

Stamina can get you so far. To reach that milestone, you must be threatening too.

"The strange thing, even though he is so brilliant, is that at the start of his run-up you can discern what he is planning to bowl," says former England batter Dawid Malan.

"You still have to be able to play it but you can notice when he is bowling the wobble seam, detect when he is attempting to swing the ball."

Periodically in Starc's career when he has been faulted for being expensive, something with which he has said he has come to terms.

That drawback is far exceeded by his proven capacity to take wickets.

Of the elite bowlers to have taken more than 350 wickets in Tests, only South Africa's Dale Steyn and Pakistan's Waqar Younis have done so with a more frequent wicket-taking rate than that of Starc.

He may be expensive, but the mean number of balls he needs to take a wicket is remarkably low.

"What I found tricky is I always felt like I was settled against him," Malan says.

"It seemed I was picking up the ball easily because he has such a nice action, you can see the ball and there are excellent batting surfaces in Australia but periodically he'd bowl an perfect ball and you would just be dismissed.

"At other times, I wouldn't say you ease up but you think 'I'm in control.'

"He might deliver a half volley because he has searched for something, bowl a slower ball and then abruptly bowls a ball that angles in and takes my off pole.

"He has just always got that wicket-taking ball. If you don't treat every ball seriously every single ball he just manages of getting you out."

A New Peak Founded On Innovation

Although he no longer bowls at the extreme speeds of his early career these days, Starc's average pace has remained solidly above 87mph throughout the most recent phase of his career.

An skill he held from the outset shows no indication of declining.

"His height was notable, very tall, and had exceptional pace through the air which stood out," Nielsen recalled.

"Additionally, he could move the ball back into the right-hander."

Swinging the ball and crashing into the batsman's stumps or body was, like Johnson, Wasim before him, Starc's main approach during the first two-thirds of his career.

But, after being omitted during the 2019 series in England, Starc incorporated the wobble seam delivery to his repertoire by the time he returned to England in 2023.

No-one in the world has taken as many as Starc's 118 Test wickets since the start of that 2023 tour. Even Indian pace ace Jasprit Bumrah trails by 12.

The wobble seam has been a major factor.

"Starc just shows you can teach an old job new tricks," says former Australia pace bowler Jason Gillespie.

"He studied a lot of England's veteran seamers and consulted with them about it.

"For a player aged 34 or 35 to continue improving is remarkable."

The wobble seam ball has introduced greater doubt to Starc's game.

When delivering the ball with a wobble seam rather than looking to swing it, some deliveries move off the seam off the surface after pitching. Others will push on straight and bring in the outside edge.

Two of England's top batsmen both fell to Starc wobble seam deliveries in the first session of this series.

Starc's number of catches to the slip cordon has jumped by almost 10% in the past three years.

"The key to the wobble seam is to have your wrist position right aligned with the ball and let go of the ball off your middle finger," Gillespie said.

"For this delivery Mitchell Starc will grip the ball with the seam angled towards gully.

"Upon release at the correct moment it will wobble down the pitch and that creates doubt for the batsman.

"He has diligently practicing at developing that because he feels that the wobble ball going across brings the slip fielders into play and makes his in-swinging delivery to the right-handed batsman more of a surprise."

The English team's struggle by bowlers named Mitchell may continue for some time yet.