Border-Gavaskar Trophy: Mitchell Starc takes wicket with first ball of a Test for record-equalling third time

Australian pace ace Mitchell Starc has taken a wicket with the first ball of a Test match for a record-equalling third time.

Starc’s full and swinging ball to dismiss Indian young gun Yashasvi Jaiswal lbw for a golden duck on the opening day of the Adelaide Test draws him level with former West Indian fast bowler Pedro Collins.

And it cements his status as Australia’s first-over king.

Jaiswal’s dismissal comes after Starc famously bowled English opener Rory Burns around his legs with the very first ball of the 2021-22 Ashes series in Brisbane.

He also had Dimuth Karunaratne caught at mid-wicket with the first ball of a Test in Galle back in 2016.

Remarkably, Collins held the record outright before Friday despite playing just 32 Test for the West Indies. This is Starc’s 91st match.

Even more remarkably, Collins dismissed the same opener on three occasions, haunting Bangladesh’s Hannan Sarkar in 2002 and twice in 2004.

New Zealand great Richard Hadlee and England’s Geoff Arnold previously shared the record.

Perhaps Starc’s most famous wicket was the unplayable ball to dismiss Brendon McCullum in the first over of the 2015 World Cup final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Starc worked the New Zealand opener over with the first two balls, which he played and missed, before rattling an inswinging yorker back through his gate with the third delivery.

The last time Australia faced India at Adelaide Oval, Starc knocked over Prithvi Shaw with the second ball of the match.

That delivery pitched just forward of a good length and ripped back through the right-hander’s gate in a dream start to that Test series.

The wicket of Jaiswal on Friday comes after Australia wore a week of fierce backlash, scrutiny and team speculation in the wake of their bruising first Test defeat in Perth almost two weeks ago.

Jaiswal, who scored a stunning century in the first Test of the series to put Australia to the sword, considered reviewing the decision, but walked off the ground reluctantly.

Ball tracking showed the ball would have clattered into leg stump.

“It was very full. Maybe just straightening down the line with a little bit of swing,” former Australian captain Ricky Ponting told Channel 7.

Indian legend Sunil Gavaskar said Jaiswal was brought undone by his trademark shuffle towards off stump.

“He does have a little shuffle towards the off stump, Jaiswal does,” Gavaskar said.

“And then he missed it. Looked to play across the line. Full length delivery. See that, he has gone outside the off stump.”