Perth: Amidst the gloom that followed India’s dismal performance against Australia in the first match in the ongoing ODI series, cricket lovers had something to talk about after the speedometer clocked Mitchell Starc’s first delivery at a phenomenal 176.5 kmph.
Was this the fastest ball in world cricket history?
No. The speedometer had read it wrong. The ball was actually bowled at 140.8 kmph or 87 mph, which is around Starc’s average.
Hence, the record for bowling the fastest ball in world cricket continues to remain with Pakistan’s Shoaib Akhtar. He had pitched the ball at 161.3 kmph at England’s Nick Knight during the 2003 World Cup.
While Starc fans believe that he will eventually break that record, Sunday was not their day. Moreover, breaking the record by a whopping 15 kmph was not something they were considering.
Even as Rohit Sharma nudged away the ball – the day’s first delivery – for a single, fans posted images of television screens showing the speedometer reading of 176.5 kmph.
“Is that the fastest ball in cricket history,” one of them wrote.
“What happened to the speedometer? Did I just witness it measured Starc’s 1st ball speed as 176 kmph or 109 mph?” another one quipped.
“Relax boys, scorer ki error hai (It is an error by the scorer),” a third said.
While Starc may not have bowled the fastest ball in world cricket, he did his bit to restrict India to 130/9 in the truncated match. He set up Virat Kohli and finally dismissed him for an eight-ball duck.
The left-arm pacer also bowled a fiery spell to former Indian skipper Rohit Sharma, keeping him boxed. It was this that finally led to Sharma’s dismissal in the fourth over, while fishing at a delivery by Josh Hazlewood outside the off-stump.