The Australian paceman is the highest wicket collector in the 2025-26 Ashes series with a haul of 26 wickets at an impressive average of just over 17.
The English team's Mitchell problem goes back a considerable period.
It began with Mitchell Johnson's ferocity in 2013-14, and has continued through the magical left-arm pace of Mitchell Starc.
In the 2025-26 Ashes series, Starc has secured 26 crucial wickets - excelling in the unavailability of pace colleagues sometimes more highly rated.
Another four wickets in the final Test in Sydney and his haul will be the highest by anyone in an Ashes series since Johnson over a decade ago.
The Path to Resilience Paved the Way for A Prolific Career of Starc
The peak period for Starc - the veteran paceman has also outscored three of England's specialist batsmen with the bat - is the peak of a Test career built on longevity, wicket-taking skill and a desire to improve.
Over the past recent period he has surpassed a host of bowling legends and, most significantly, the great Wasim Akram on the list of cricket's greatest bowlers.
By surpassing Wasim, Starc became the highest wicket-taking left-arm seamer in Test history.
And when he plays at his home ground for the Sydney Test this week, it will be the 27th straight Australia Test in a row in which he has featured - a broader streak of four Tests missed from the past fifty-six.
The days of a young Starc being told to "show more resilience" by then Australia coach Tim Nielsen are a distant memory.
"Initially it might have stung him a little bit and that is probably the role to test competitors and to try and get them to be better than they have been in the past," the former coach stated.
"It was likely one of the talks you have with a lot of young fast bowlers, especially when they start to come into international cricket.
"It happened a couple of times where he said he was a bit sore and might need a spell.
"The message was simple than 'I think it's time we have got to discover how much your body can take before it breaks rather than pulling up in case it breaks.'"
What Makes Starc So Hard to Face?
Such is the improvement, Australia coach Andrew McDonald has talked up the possibility of Starc, the oldest of the world-class pace trio, touring England for the 2027 Ashes, by which time he will be thirty-seven.
Ray Lindwall, who played his last match in 1960, was the last Australian quick to wear a baggy green beyond his 37th year.
Achieving this would give Starc the chance to join cricket's 500-wicket club and become only the fifth pace bowler to take 500 wickets.
Longevity can get you so far. To reach that milestone, you must be threatening too.
"The strange thing, even though he is exceptional, is that at the top of his mark you can anticipate what he is planning to bowl," stated former England batter Dawid Malan.
"You still have to be able to handle it but you can observe when he is holding his wobble seam, see when he is attempting to swing the ball."
On occasion in Starc's career when he has been criticised for being expensive, something with which he has said he has come to terms.
That drawback is massively outweighed by his ability to take wickets.
Of the top-tier bowlers to have taken more than 350 in Tests, only South Africa's Dale Steyn and Pakistan's Waqar Younis have done so with a superior strike rate than Starc's.
He may leak runs, but the mean number of balls he needs to take a wicket is remarkably low.
"What I found tricky is I always felt like I was comfortable facing him," Malan says.
"I felt I was picking up the ball easily because he has such a fluid action, you can track the delivery and there are excellent batting surfaces in Australia but one in every 10 balls he'd bowl an unplayable delivery and you would just be dismissed.
"In between that, I wouldn't say you ease up but you think 'I'm on top here.'
"He might deliver a half volley because he has tried something different, bowl a slower ball and then abruptly bowls a ball that angles in and hits the off stump.
"He consistently possesses that wicket-taking ball. If you don't respect him each and every delivery he just finds a way of getting you out."
A New Peak Powered By New Tricks
While he may not reach the 99mph heights of his early career these days, Starc's typical speed has remained solidly above 87 miles per hour throughout the most recent phase of his career.
An skill he held from the very start shows no indication of declining.
"He was tall, very tall, and had exceptional pace through the air which was remarkable," Nielsen recalled.
"Additionally, he could move the ball back into the right-hander."
Moving the ball in the air and crashing into the batsman's stumps or body was, like Johnson, Wasim before him, Starc's main approach during the first two-thirds of his career.
But, after being dropped during the 2019 series in England, Starc added the wobble seam ball to his skill set by the time he came back to England in 2023.
No bowler 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 is behind by twelve wickets.
The wobble seam has been a primary cause.
"Starc just shows you can teach an old dog new tricks," says former Australia pace bowler Jason Gillespie.
"He studied a lot of Stuart Broad and James Anderson and spoke to them about it.
"For a player aged 34 or 35 to stride and get better is remarkable."
The wobbler has added greater doubt to Starc's game.
When delivering the ball with a wobbling seam rather than looking to swing it, some deliveries deviate sharply off the surface after pitching. Others will go on with the arm and bring in the outside edge.
Zak Crawley and Joe Root both were dismissed by Starc wobble seam deliveries in the opening hour of the current Ashes.
Starc's number of catches to the slip cordon has increased by almost 10% in the past few years.
"The key to the wobble seam is to have your wrist position right behind the ball and let go of the ball off your middle finger," Gillespie explains.
"For this delivery Mitchell Starc will hold the ball with the seam positioned towards the off side.
"Upon release at the correct moment it will wobble its way down the pitch and that generates uncertainty for the batsman.
"He has diligently practicing at perfecting this because he feels that wobble seam going across brings the slip fielders into play and makes his in-swinging delivery to the right hander more of a surprise."
The English team's struggle by Mitchells may continue for some time yet.
