Ian Bishop slaps Mitchell Starc with brutal criticism after he leaks runs against Rajasthan Royals

Former West Indies cricketer turned legendary commentator Ian Bishop, whose name is enough to have his iconic voice echo around, feels that Aussie pacer Mitchell Starc has been below par in his performances.

Starc, who was made the most expensive IPL player ever last year when the Kolkata Knight Riders splashed INR 24.75 Crores for his services, has had a terrible IPL 2024 season so far.

Things got from bad to worse last night as he leaked 50 runs from his 4 overs during his team's last-ball loss to Rajasthan Royals. 

Mitchell Starc was literally taken to the cleaners last night in front of home support at the Eden Gardens stadium. Kolkata Knight Riders were aiming to win their 5th game of the tournament and they had done the initial work with the bat very well.

After losing the toss and batting first, Shreyas Iyer's side posted 224 runs as the target for Rajasthan Royals, thanks to the sensational century from Sunil Narine and quickfire knocks from Angkirsh Raghuvanshi, Andre Russell and Rinku Singh. 

The match as it went 

200+ targets are always difficult to chase and the way RR had initiated their run-chase, the Knight Riders were favored to win the game. Mitchell Starc started off the proceedings for KKR in the 2nd innings but he was not spared by Yashasvi Jaiswal and Jos Buttler who gave Rajasthan a good start.

However, Vaibhav Arora bowled a beautiful delivery to remove Jaiswal cheaply yet again before Harshit Rana led to the departures of Sanju Samson and Riyan Parag in the space of just 3 overs.

As Rajasthan kept batting according to the asking rate, the KKR bowlers were adamant enough to keep taking wickets but not Mitchell Starc, who not only conceded a half-century of runs but also remained wicketless for the 4th time this tournament.    

Starc being the most exprienced bowler in the Knight Riders team, should have taken the responsibility to remove RR opener Jos Buttler.

The Englishman took the run-chase very deep, saw his teammates come and go from the other, scored his 7th century but most importantly, kept his team at the summit of the points table with 12 points. 

What did Ian Bishop say about Mitchell Starc? 

Mitchell Starc's shambolic performance intrigued Ian Bishop to criticize him with a harsh choice of words. Bishop, while speaking to ESPNcricinfo's post-match analysis show, claimed that Starc has not even got closer to hitting the nail on its head after being sold at such a made amount of money. 

Bishop pointed to Starc's inability to deliver wide yorkers as well bouncers in the death overs which either remained wide or went flying into the stands. 

"I would assume that Mitchell Starc, especially at that price, hasn't really hit the nail on its head. He got three wickets last game but tonight again he would have been hoping to step up. There was this one over, where he was going wide, wide, wide. When you need sixes, I think it's a good plan."

"Then you talk about backing yourself - of course, there was that five wides and the short ball which he got hooked for when there was nobody at the square. Instead of sticking with the wides, he moved back. So yeah, like I said… it's the little things." - Ian Bishop said via ESPNcricinfo.