Mitchell Starc’s latest Ashes heroics may have dominated the scorecard, but behind his record-breaking spell stands the Indian heritage coach who first saw greatness in a teenage wicketkeeper from Homebush—Neil D’Costa.
Born in Sydney to Anglo-Indian parents from Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu, D’Costa realised early that his calling lay not in first-grade cricket but in developing others. He began coaching at 19; decades later, his legacy is stamped across generations of Australian cricket—from Test stars to the next wave of multicultural talent.
Starc finished the second Test with 420 career wickets, overtaking Pakistan great Wasim Akram to become the most successful left-arm fast bowler in Test history. Only Sri Lankan spinner Rangana Herath (433) sits ahead of him among left-armers. His blistering opening spells also placed him in rare company—Starc is just the second bowler ever to take a wicket in the first over of four consecutive Test innings, matching a feat last achieved by Sri Lanka’s Dhammika Prasad in 2015.
This Ashes series has been extraordinary even by Starc’s own standards. His six-for in Brisbane made him only the sixth fast bowler to claim six wickets in three consecutive Tests, joining names that echo across 140 years of cricket: Lohmann, Richardson, Imran, Marshall and Muzarabani. It was also only the second time he topped both the bowling and batting charts in the same Test—his 77 complementing figures of 6-75. Not since Ian Botham in 1981 has a player taken six wickets and scored more than 75 in an Ashes innings.
Starc walked away with his third straight Player-of-the-Match award—something only Michael Hussey had previously achieved for Australia. His 18 wickets across the first two Ashes Tests make him the first bowler since Shane Warne in 1994 to start the series so explosively.
But long before the accolades, long before the comparisons with legends, there was a 14-year-old boy keeping wicket at Homebush Boys High School—until D’Costa intervened.
The NSW Department of Education summed it up in a Facebook post:
“The most successful left-arm fast bowler in the history of Test cricket was once a wicketkeeper at Homebush Boys High School… that all changed when renowned coach Neil D’Costa saw him as a 14-year-old, converting him to a fast bowler.”
For D’Costa, spotting talent early and transforming careers has become second nature. Over nearly four decades, the Sydney-based coach has worked with some of the brightest names in Australian and global cricket—Michael Clarke, Phillip Hughes, Marnus Labuschagne, Nick Compton, Umesh Yadav, VVS Laxman and many others.
His academic grounding—degrees in sports science, coaching and psychology—has shaped a coaching style that blends technical mastery with a deep understanding of athletes’ mental development.
Today he runs Stars Cricket Academy, where hundreds of players pass through its nets weekly. The current crop is rich with potential: Harjas Singh, Param Uppal and Hunar Verma, Shivani Mehta, and Smit Raval.
D’Costa’s influence stretches well beyond Australia. As head coach of the first full-time BCCI academy in Vidarbha, he helped shape the squad that would later claim its maiden Ranji Trophy title. His High Performance Academy at East Sydney Cricket Centre continues to attract young players seeking the kind of transformative guidance Starc once received.
Starc’s world-record wicket tally may headline the Ashes, but the story behind the story begins years earlier in a suburban schoolyard, where a teenage keeper met the Indian heritage coach who changed his life.
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