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England's Mitchell problem goes back a considerable period.

This trend commenced with Mitchell Johnson's ferocity in 2013, and has carried on through the left-arm wizardry of Starc.

In the 2025-26 Ashes series, Starc has claimed 26 crucial wickets - stepping up in the unavailability of pace colleagues often more vaunted.

Just four more dismissals in the fifth Test in Sydney and his haul will be the best by anyone in an Ashes series since Johnson over a decade ago.

How 'Toughening Up' Paved the Way for Many Summers of Starc

The Starc's dominant summer - the 35-year-old has also outscored three of England's top order with the bat - is the high point of a Test career established through durability, wicket-taking skill and a keenness to improve.

Over the past recent period he has overtaken Curtly Ambrose, Harbhajan Singh, Shaun Pollock and, most significantly, Wasim Akram on the list of cricket's greatest bowlers.

By nudging down Wasim, Starc became the highest wicket-taking left-arm fast bowler in Test history.

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

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

"At the time it might have stung him a little bit and that is likely the role to push athletes and to try and get them to be more robust than they have been in the past," Nielsen said.

"It was probably one of the discussions you have with a lot of young fast bowlers, especially when they start to break into international cricket.

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

"It wasn't anything more than 'I reckon it's time we have got to test how much your body can take before it breaks rather than stopping in case it breaks.'"

What Makes Starc So Hard to Face?

So great the change, the national team's coach Andrew McDonald has discussed the prospect 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.

The legendary Ray Lindwall, who played his last match in 1960, was the last Australian quick to wear a baggy green beyond his 37th year.

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

Longevity can get you only part of the way. To reach that milestone, you must be threatening too.

"Paradoxically, even though he is exceptional, is that at the top of his mark you can see what he is planning to bowl," stated former England batter Dawid Malan.

"You still have to be able to play it but you can see when he is preparing a seam delivery, detect when he is trying to swing it."

There have been times in Starc's career when he has been faulted for leaking runs, something with which he has said he has made peace.

That drawback is far exceeded by his ability to take wickets.

Of the elite bowlers to have taken more than 350 in Tests, only two modern greats have done so with a more frequent wicket-taking rate than Starc's.

He may go for runs, but the average number of balls he needs to take a wicket is exceptionally low.

"The difficult aspect is I always felt like I was settled against him," Malan added.

"I felt 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 unplayable delivery and you would just be heading to the pavilion.

"In between that, I wouldn't say you relax but you think 'I'm in control.'

"He might deliver a poor ball because he has tried something different, bowl a cut ball and then suddenly bowls a ball that starts on middle and takes my off pole.

"He has just always got that lethal ball. If you don't treat every ball seriously every single ball he just finds a way of getting you out."

A Renaissance Powered By Innovation

While he may not reach the 99mph heights of his second Test these days, Starc's typical speed has remained solidly above 87mph throughout the latter part of his career.

An ability he held from the beginning shows no indication of declining.

"He was tall, very tall, and had really good air speed which stood out," Nielsen says.

"Additionally, he could swing the ball back into the right-handed batsman."

Moving the ball in the air and targeting the batsman's stumps or body was, like other great left-armers before him, Starc's main approach during the majority of his career.

But, after being omitted during the 2019 series in England, Starc mastered the wobble seam delivery to his armoury by the time he came back to England in 2023.

No bowler in the world has taken as many as Starc's 118 Test wickets since the beginning of that 2023 tour. Even Indian pace ace Jasprit Bumrah is behind by twelve wickets.

The wobble seam has been a major factor.

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

"He watched a lot of Stuart Broad and James Anderson and consulted with them about it.

"For a player aged his mid-thirties to continue improving is fantastic."

The wobbler has brought greater mystery to Starc's game.

When delivering the ball with a wobbling seam rather than looking to hoop it, some deliveries move off the seam off the surface after pitching. Others will hold its line and bring in the edge of the bat.

Two of England's top batsmen both fell to Starc wobble balls in the opening hour of this series.

Starc's number of dismissals caught in the slips has risen by almost 10% in the past few 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 explains.

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

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

"He has working hard at developing that because he feels that the wobble ball going across involves the slip fielders into play and makes his in-swinging delivery to the right-handed batsman more of a shock weapon."

The English team's struggle by Mitchells may persist for some time yet.