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          Starc breaks the 100-wicket barrier in record time

          Fastest to 100 ODI wickets ESPNcricinfo Ltd
          • S Rajesh, Stats editor, ESPNcricinfo
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              S Rajesh is ESPNcricinfo's stats editor in Bangalore. He did an MBA in marketing, and then worked for a year in advertising, before deciding to chuck it in favour of a job which would combine the pleasures of watching cricket and writing about it. The intense office cricket matches were an added bonus.
          Aug 21, 2016, 03:06 PM

          When Mitchell Starc had Dhananjaya de Silva caught at midwicket off a slower ball, he became the fastest to 100 ODI wickets, achieving the landmark in his 52nd match, a game quicker than Saqlain Mushtaq, and two quicker than Shane Bond. After an inauspicious start to his ODI career - 0 for 51 off 8.5 overs against India - Starc has been on an ODI roll, with 11 hauls of four or more wickets. No other bowler has as many four-wicket hauls at the time when they got to 100 - the next best is Waqar Younis, who had ten such hauls when he reached the 100-wicket mark.

          Starc's first 50 wickets took 29 games; while that was still impressive, 21 players had reached that mark faster, with Ajantha Mendis getting there in just 19. Starc was ten matches behind Mendis at that stage, but he is 11 games ahead at the 100-wicket mark - Mendis only got there in his 63rd ODI.

          Starc's strike rate of 24.4 is the best at the 100-wicket mark among all bowlers (strike rate at the end of the match in which they got their 100th). Shoaib Akhtar, who got to his 100th in his 60th game - and took his career-best figures of 6 for 16 in that game - was next best at the 100-wicket mark, with a strike rate of 26.24. In terms of averages, he is fifth, after Saqlain Mushtaq, Curtly Ambrose, Joel Garner and Waqar Younis.

          * At the end of the innings in which they got their 100th ODI wicket

          Starc's ODI numbers are quite incredible in most parts of the world. Apart from England and Zimbabwe, where he has strike rates of more than 35, his strike rate is less than 30 in every other country. He has done better in Australia than in other countries, but an overseas average of 22.66 and strike rate of 26.6 is outstanding too. (Click here for his bowling career summary in ODIs.)

          More Starc stats

          • In the 2015 World Cup, Starc took 22 wickets at an average of 10.18, the best average in a World Cup for a bowler who took at least 15 wickets.

          • Starc's numbers are equally impressive against both right and left-hand batsmen. Against right-handers, he has taken 71 wickets at an average of 19.47, and against left-handers his wickets have come at 19.63 each.

          • In ODIs where he has bowled at least five overs, only eight times has he finished wicketless, while 13 times he has taken at least three wickets.