American actor Lee Majors was famously The Six Million Dollar Man. Mitchell Starc became Australia's AUD 4 million man last week at the IPL auction.
Like the fictional bionic man, Starc has been an iron man with the ball, powering through a year that included a Test tour to India, a World Test Championship final, an away Ashes where he was Australia's Player of the Series, and an ODI World Cup.
His pace and strike ability with the ball have remained high throughout, despite the odd dip in form and a lingering groin issue that is much more than a niggle despite his preference to play it down publicly.
And two days out from the Boxing Day Test against Pakistan, despite netting a small fortune in his first IPL auction for five years, he has vowed to continue to prioritise Test cricket for as long as his body will let him.
"Red ball is still top of the tree for me," Starc said on Sunday at the MCG. "I think my body will let me know about Test cricket before probably I want to [stop]. It's an opportunity next year, in terms of the [Australian] winter, it's a lot quieter. There's no Test match between the one in New Zealand in March and the summer next year. Obviously there's a T20 World Cup. It's a nice lead into that with the IPL and the quality of cricket that that tournament presents."
As eye-watering as Starc's auction price was, it would seem impossible not to think about the amount of money he has potentially left on the table having not entered the IPL auction for five years and not played in the tournament since 2015. But Starc has not given it a second thought. His preference to have every April and May off to spend time with his wife, Australia women's captain Alyssa Healy, has trumped any potential earnings in that period.
The Australia men's fast bowler was bought for USD 2.9 million in the IPL auction
"I've always said whenever asked, I've prioritised Test cricket, certainly prioritise international cricket and juggling one cricket schedule is hard enough that alone when there's two in a relationship," Starc said. "I've always spent that time away from cricket with Alyssa or time with family and recharging my body for being as fit and as ready as I can for Australian cricket so I don't regret any of it. I think it's certainly helped my Test cricket. As I've said before, the money's always nice and certainly is this year but I've always prioritised international cricket and I think that's helped my game."
His commitment to international cricket and his desire to continue to improve as a bowler have never been more evident than this year.
The groin issues he battled out of the Ashes series were far more serious than he has let on. Yet he only missed one white-ball tour of South Africa and one match in the World Cup, and even then he was rested at the behest of the selectors and the medical staff, not by personal choice.
There were serious concerns about how he would recover coming out of the tournament, to the point where Australia's selectors and medical staff carefully managed Western Australia tearaway Lance Morris' start to the domestic summer to ensure he was cherry ripe if needed for the first Test against Pakistan.
But Starc turned up in Perth in superb shape and bowled with high pace throughout the match. His ability to withstand the rigours of a brutal schedule this year, that included eight Test matches on three continents and 14 ODIs, has been undersold. Pat Cummins has only played one more international than Starc and only bowled 44 more overs in total without a lingering groin problem, while the less explosive Josh Hazlewood has played two fewer Tests than Starc and bowled 37 fewer overs.
"There were a number of things to manage all that," Starc said. "Preparation [being] one, I think I'd tweaked a few things just to manage some pain, but I came out of the back end of the World Cup in a better place than I started and was able to manage that well, obviously with the medicos as well. I sort of tailored my prep or my training. I'm probably doing less than I probably would have wanted to."
As impressive as Starc's durability has been, he is still searching for improvement in his technical skills, even with 83 Tests and 338 wickets under his belt. He picked up two wickets in the first innings in Perth with two superb deliveries. He had Shan Masood caught behind late on day two with a ball that swung late. He then uprooted Sarfaraz Ahmed's off stump with a searing 140kph conventional inswinger with a 76-over-old ball.
But he got a little wayward at the back end of the first innings which prompted him to do something he had never done before. After Australia had bowled out Pakistan for 271 in 101.5 overs, with Starc having delivered 25 overs himself, he went straight to the nets out the back of Perth Stadium and kept bowling to try and fix a technical issue in his action with the help of coach Andrew McDonald and bowling coach Daniel Vettori.
"I just felt in the first inning something wasn't working quite the way I wanted it to and what probably frustrated me was that I couldn't work it out at the time," Starc said.
"I'm certainly in a place where I've played enough cricket to problem solve on my own or be quicker than my younger self. So, whilst I was up and going I just felt like I wanted to do it then rather than sleep on it or try and get up and bowl in the morning whilst we were batting. It only took a dozen balls to work it out and it was much better for the second innings.
"I thought my front side wasn't working the way it should, but it was actually my arm path in my bowling arm."
With his action cleaned up, he cleaned up Pakistan's top-order in the second innings with a blistering spell, taking 3 for 31 as Australia bowled Pakistan out for just 89.
Two days later Starc became the AUD 4 million man. But he remains a priceless asset to Australia's Test team and fully committed one at that.