Inside Mitchell Starc’s stranglehold on Ben Stokes

Stokes’ defence is arguably the best in world cricket when he sets his mind to it. Australia are well aware of that fact, given Stokes boasts a clutch of Ashes half-centuries strenuously blocked and bunted across 159 balls (Adelaide, 2025), 152 (Headingley, 2019) and 148 (Gabba, 2025).

The 12 times Starc has dismissed him have come from 18 Tests. Only Nathan Lyon (who has faced Stokes 23 times in Tests) has drawn up more bowling plans for the English all-rounder.

Starc draws on a bank of Stokes-specific knowledge dating back as far as the 2015 Ashes.

Drawing him out of defence and into a full-blooded drive has been Starc’s modus operandi. Easier said than done, but the evolution in Starc’s game, well into his 30s, has made his dominance of the English skipper possible.

Splattering stumps will always linger in the memory, and Starc’s speed and swing has made for particularly spectacular snapshots. The yorker that ripped Stokes out at the 2019 World Cup, for example, when he was well set and eyeing a century, before another forlorn walk to the pavilion.

Now, Starc’s mastery of the wobble seam is bringing Stokes undone. In Perth, the English skipper was pushed back with two good-length balls outside off stump, which Stokes duly left alone.

The fast bowler’s classic set-up followed. A fuller, tighter line, inviting the drive before nipping back nastily between the gap Stokes’ full-blooded drive offers, that his forward defence does not.

Stokes knew it was coming once more in Adelaide. He watched Starc do exactly the same to Jofra Archer throughout his 14th over.

First delivery of the 15th over, the sucker ball was pitched up to Stokes, the same wobbling ball looking for purchase off the pitch rather than movement through the air. And down Stokes went, for the 12th time, to a plan he knows all too well.

From there, the day of Stokes and his beleaguered side went nowhere fast. The positivity of a first session where England trimmed the hosts’ lead to 85 and claimed Jake Weatherald early was squandered after lunch.

Stokes’ field placements confounded. Quick wickets were England’s only way back into the contest, yet Jofra Archer bowled with a ring field in front of the wicket and what was effectively a containing, one-day field from the session’s first ball.

Easy runs for Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne were offered through point, and Head helped himself to the bedrock of a fourth successive century on his home deck. Stokes did not bowl, grabbing at an apparent groin issue late in the day instead.

There have been times in the past when Stokes has played a long innings or endured cramps and not bowled the following day.

But this is the same talismanic skipper who bowled himself into the ground – and a lengthy shoulder injury – during England’s most recent series against India, because bowling himself was his best chance of taking a wicket.

That he didn’t with the series on the line, yet was apparently fit to do so according to the English camp, is the latest in a growing list of questions for the tour.

And now, just for fun, Stokes will get to face Starc once more at some point in the next two days. All too aware of what’s coming, all too aware he’s often been powerless to stop it.

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