The Australian paceman is the top wicket-taker in the 2025-26 Ashes series with 26 wickets at an average of 17.42.
The English team's struggle against bowlers named Mitchell stretches back a long time.
It began with the sheer pace of Mitchell Johnson in 2013, and has carried on through the left-arm wizardry of Mitchell Starc.
In the 2025-26 Ashes series, Starc has secured 26 crucial wickets - stepping up in the absence of pace colleagues often more vaunted.
Another four wickets in the fifth Test in Sydney and his haul will be the most successful by anyone in an Ashes series since Johnson 12 years ago.
The Path to Resilience Led To A Prolific Career of Starc
The peak period for Starc - the 35-year-old has also outscored three of England's top order with the bat - is the zenith of a Test career built on longevity, wicket-taking skill and a keenness to evolve.
Over the past month and a half he has overtaken a host of bowling legends and, most significantly, Wasim Akram on the list of cricket's greatest bowlers.
By nudging down Wasim, Starc became the most successful left-arm pace bowler in Test history.
And when he plays at his home ground for the fifth Test this week, it will be the 27th Australia Test in a row in which he has been selected - a broader streak of only four missed Tests from the past fifty-six.
The era of a young Starc being told to "show more resilience" by then Australia coach Tim Nielsen are a thing of the past.
"Back then it might have affected him a little bit and that is probably the role to test competitors and to try and get them to be more robust than they have been in the past," Nielsen said.
"This was probably one of the conversations you have with a lot of young fast bowlers, especially when they start to enter international cricket.
"There were a couple of times where he said he was a bit uncomfortable and might need a break.
"It wasn't anything more than 'I reckon it's time we have got to find out how much your body can take before it breaks rather than stopping in case it breaks.'"
What Makes Starc So Difficult to Face?
So great the change, the national team's coach Andrew McDonald has talked up the idea of Starc, the most senior of the world-class pace trio, touring England for the next Ashes series in England, by which time he will be 37.
The legendary Ray Lindwall, who played his final Test in 1960, was the last Australian quick to wear a Test cap beyond his 37th birthday.
Achieving this would give Starc the chance to emulate cricket's 500-wicket club and become only the fifth pace bowler to take 500 Test wickets.
Durability can get you only part of the way. To achieve that feat, you must be a constant danger too.
"Interestingly, even though he is exceptional, is that at the top of his mark you can see what he is planning to bowl," stated former England batter Dawid Malan.
"It remains necessary to be able to counter it but you can see when he is bowling the wobble seam, see when he is attempting to swing the ball."
Periodically in Starc's career when he has been faulted for leaking runs, something with which he has said he has made peace.
That weakness is heavily counterbalanced by his remarkable skill to take wickets.
Of the leading wicket-takers to have taken more than 350 in Tests, only South Africa's Dale Steyn and Pakistan's Waqar Younis have done so with a better strike rate than Starc's.
He may go for runs, but the average number of balls he needs to take a wicket is exceptionally low.
"What I found tricky is I always felt like I was settled against him," Malan added.
"It seemed I was seeing the ball well because he has such a nice action, you can track the delivery and there are good pitches in Australia but one in every 10 balls he'd bowl an unplayable delivery and you would just be walking back.
"In between that, I wouldn't say you ease up but you think 'I have got him here.'
"He might deliver a half volley because he has tried something different, bowl a cut ball and then abruptly bowls a ball that angles in and takes my off pole.
"He consistently possesses that match-winning delivery. If you don't respect him each and every delivery he just finds a way of taking your wicket."
A Revival Founded On Innovation
While he may not reach the extreme speeds of his second Test these days, Starc's typical speed has remained consistently around 87 miles per hour throughout the most recent phase of his career.
An talent he held from the very start shows no sign of fading.
"His height was notable, proper tall, and had really good air speed which stood out," Nielsen recalled.
"He could also move the ball back into the right-hander."
Moving the ball in the air and crashing into the toes, pads or grille was, like other great left-armers before him, Starc's primary method during the first two-thirds of his career.
But, after being dropped during the 2019 Ashes tour, Starc added the wobble seam ball to his repertoire by the time he returned to England in 2023.
No-one in the world has taken as many as Starc's 118 Test wickets since the beginning of that 2023 tour. Even India superstar Jasprit Bumrah trails by 12.
The wobble seam has been a major factor.
"Starc just shows you can teach an old dog new tricks," stated former Australia pace bowler Jason Gillespie.
"He watched a lot of Stuart Broad and James Anderson and consulted with them about it.
"For an athlete aged his mid-thirties to stride and get better is fantastic."
The wobble seam ball has introduced greater uncertainty to Starc's game.
When delivering the ball with a wobble seam rather than looking to hoop it, some deliveries jag unpredictably off the surface after pitching. Others will hold its line and bring in the edge of the bat.
Zak Crawley and Joe Root both fell to Starc wobble balls in the opening hour of the current Ashes.
Starc's number of catches to the slip cordon has risen by almost 10% in the past three years.
"The crucial element to the wobble seam is to have your fingers and wrist right behind the ball and release the ball off your fingertips," Gillespie said.
"With the wobble seam Mitchell Starc will hold the ball with the seam positioned towards the off side.
"Upon release at the correct moment it will wobble down the pitch and that generates uncertainty for the batsman.
"He has been working hard at developing that because he feels that wobble seam going across brings the slip fielders into play and makes his inswinger to the right hander more of a shock weapon."
England's torment by bowlers named Mitchell may go on for some time yet.
