Mitchell Starc goes public with sad news after difficult decision with wife

Yahoo

12 hours ago

Mitchell Starc has admitted he's realistic that his career in the prestigious IPL might be over after flying home early from the tournament with wife Alyssa Healy last month. Starc and Healy were among dozens of Aussies who flew home from India when the IPL was suspended in May due to tensions with neighbouring Pakistan.
The T20 tournament eventually resumed, but Starc and fellow Aussie Jake Fraser-McGurk chose not to return for the Delhi Capitals. Healy, who was in India supporting her husband, later revealed harrowing details of the situation, which saw a game in Dharamshala abandoned mid-match because of air strikes nearby.
Speaking for the first time since deciding not to return to India, Starc said on Friday he's at peace with the fact he might never play in the IPL again. IPL franchises aren't known to react well when players leave the tournament early or withdraw.
'I'm comfortable with my decision and how I felt about the whole situation and how it was handled,' Starc told , revealing he'd expressed concerns about going ahead with the game in Dharamshala before it had to be abandoned.
'That's why I made my decision post-that, and my focus changed to red-ball cricket for about a week prior to coming over here (to Lord's for the World Test Championship final). Time will tell with repercussions or how it looks with guys that didn't return. But I've had my questions and concerns leading into that game, and obviously we saw what happened, which played a part in my decision."
Starc also confirmed that he pulled out of the recent Champions Trophy ODI tournament due to concerns he held about playing in Pakistan. Whether IPL franchises will be willing to offer him contracts in the future remains to be seen, but the 35-year-old has shown in the past he doesn't really care for the riches on offer in T20 leagues.
Starc has famously missed out on around $10 million throughout his career by prioritising family time with wife Alyssa and keeping his body fresh to play for Australia, rather than playing in the IPL. But he was quick to point out on Friday that he's always given 100 per cent to IPL franchises he's played for.
'These are different circumstances," he said. 'It was more a question of not having enough information leading into making a decision [about] things of that degree. I had a discussion back home then came to a decision, and whatever comes from that I'm comfortable with that and we move forward.'
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Healy had previously opened up the scary situation that unfolded in Dharamshala, in northern India near the Pakistan border. 'It was a surreal experience," she said on the 'Willow Talk' podcast. "All of a sudden a couple of the light towers went out and we were just sitting there up the top waiting … we're a large group of family and extra support staff. And the next minute the guy who wrangles the group of us and gets us on the bus came up and his face was white. He was like, 'we need to go right now'.
'Then (another) guy came out and his face was white and he grabbed one of the children and said, 'we need to leave right now.' We were like, 'what's going on?' We weren't told anything. We had no idea.
'I said to Mitch, 'what's going on?' He said the town 60km away had just been smacked by some of the missiles so there was a complete blackout in the area. That's why the lights were off because the Dharamshala stadium was like a beacon at that point in time. All of a sudden we're crammed into vans and off we go back to the hotel. There was madness.'
Healy said they took a five-and-a-half-hour bus ride and six-hour train trip the following day back to Delhi, which took them uncomfortably close to the Pakistan border. 'There was a lot of anxiety around the Australian group because we didn't have a whole heap of information as to what was going on," she added. "That's probably been the really interesting and probably the scariest part of this whole situation is the misinformation."