'Ride off into the sunset': Mitchell Starc drops cheeky retirement joke before setting record straight

'Ride off into the sunset': Mitchell Starc drops cheeky retirement joke before setting record straight originally appeared on Cricket News. Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Mitchell Starc made a tongue-in-cheek retirement remark on a podcast about riding off after his next 19 Tests.

Wife and former Australia captain Alyssa Healy burst out laughing on hearing his cheeky comment during the recording.

Starc quickly clarified he wasn't hanging up his boots yet, detailing why he stepped back from ODIs for Test cricket.

Advertisement

'Not going first': Mitchell Starc laughs off retirement talk after '19 tests' joke

Mitchell Starc cracked what sounded, for a split second, like a retirement bombshell during a recent podcast chat while hinting his Test career might be winding down faster than anyone expected.

The moment came up while Starc was talking through his workload for the next year and a half. He's set himself a target of 21 Tests in that window, and so far, he's only ticked off two. On the "Keepin' It Cricket" podcast, hosts pressed him on how he was gearing up for the grind ahead, and Starc, in typical dry fashion, did the maths out loud before landing a punchline.

"Yeah, 19 to go, then I can ride off in the sunset, I don't know," Starc said. "But, uh, I don't think I'll be first to go of the boys. Um, yeah. Going right."

It was a throwaway remark, delivered with a shrug in his voice, but it was enough to catch the attention of Alyssa Healy, his wife and the former Australian women's captain. She didn't hold back her reaction either, breaking into laughter almost immediately once the words landed.

Advertisement

MORE: 'A joke of an athlete': Steven Finn and Stuart Broad reveal their current No. 1 men's cricketer as Jasprit Bumrah loses out

Starc clarifies there's no retirement plan in the works

Starc wasted no time setting things straight after he sensed that the comment might get blown out of proportion. He made clear he wasn't hinting at an imminent farewell and reckons he won't even be the first among his teammates to call time on his career.

"No, it's no, I've got plenty more than that. I don't think I'll be first to go," he said.

"Yeah, going alright, going well, I have bowled with Pat this morning and then get one more bowl in before I get on the plane over to South Africa and then meet the boys over there. So, yeah, it's excellent."

MORE: Fleming sends clear message on facing Australia in Ashes as England's new Test coach

Advertisement

Why Starc chose Tests over the ODI format

Later in the discussion, Starc opened up on the thinking behind trimming his workload across formats, a decision that eventually saw him step away from T20s.

"Do I still fit into that full process, thought process of this World Cup? And it was yes. Okay, well, something's got to go," he said.

Pressed on the toll of playing across all three formats for so long, Starc admitted the schedule had simply become too much to juggle.

"Yeah, I'm not, I'm not that young anymore," he said, before elaborating further. "I'd sat down and sort of, I've played three formats for a long time, and it was getting harder to do with the schedule and prioritising different things."

Advertisement

Tests, he said, were never up for negotiation.

"Tests were never going to budge for me, so that was locked away," he said.

"It was what I what I felt was what I felt was more important to me in the other two forms. And I know that T20 World Cup was on the horizon, but the one-day format was the one I first started with in Australia, probably the first format I felt like I belonged in, in a sense.

"Um, and there was the carrot of '27, speaking to the powers that be as well: 'Do I still fit into that full process, thought process of this World Cup?' And it was, 'Yes.' 'Okay, well, something's got to go.'"

Starc's joke says more about his mindset than his retirement plans

Read between the lines, and Starc's comment wasn't really about quitting; it was about pacing himself smartly through a brutal 18-month stretch. Fast bowlers rarely get to choose when their bodies give out, so hearing one openly plan around workload management, rather than just gritting through it, is refreshing.

Advertisement

His choice to prioritise Tests over T20s also tells you where his head's at: format loyalty isn't sentimental for him; it's tactical. Dropping one white-ball format to protect his Test longevity is exactly the kind of career-management decision more fast bowlers should be making, rather than burning out trying to do everything at once.

The joke landed because it was believable for half a second, proof that at 36, retirement chatter isn't paranoia anymore; it's just part of the conversation. Starc handled it well, defusing the moment with humour while still being upfront about the real trade-offs behind his scheduling.

Click here to read article