Australia’s star women’s cricketer Alyssa Healy has come out in support of her underfire husband and speedster Mitchell Starc after the latter was severely scrutinized for his poor showing in the first Test against India at the Adelaide Oval last week.

Heading into the second Test at Optus Stadium in Perth, Aussie cricket legends Shane Warne, Mark Waugh and Mitchell Johnson have questioned Starc’s new-ball bowling, most notably in the second innings in Adelaide. While Starc had taken 2/63 in the first innings of opening Test, he returned with the figures of 3/40 in the second essay.

Warne is extremely critical of Starc, saying that the left-armer is now playing for his spot in the Australian team in Perth.

“I have always heaped praise on our bowlers, because I believe we have one of the best attacks in the world, but Mitchell Starc’s performance with the second new ball in both innings was really poor and he is under pressure to hold his spot if he bowls in Perth like he did in Adelaide,” Warne wrote in an exclusive column for The Herald Sun.

“I don’t believe Mitchell Starc has found his rhythm yet at all. So why on earth was he not playing Shield games, or grade cricket, or any cricket leading up to the Test to get that rhythm? I’m not saying Mitchell Starc cost us the game. But if you are doing CSI-style, forensic analysis over the match and look for where it went wrong, you’d look at his effort with the second new ball in both innings. It was atrocious, the worst I’ve ever seen Starc with the second new ball,” he explained.

Although Starc is yet to comment publicly on the criticism, Healy has hit out at her hubby’s detractors with a statistical reminder.

Taking to Twitter, Alyssa Healy shared an image of a new story which states that Starc continues to have the best strike rate of any bowler in Australia Test cricket history with a minimum of 100 Test wickets.

“With 191 wickets under his belt after 46 Test matches, Mitch is approaching the 2nd Test v India in Perth just 9 wickets short of the magic 200 Test wicket mark,” Healy’s post read.

“What is even more remarkable, his current strike rate of 50.2 (balls) is the best S/R of any Australian Test bowler (minimum 100 wickets), an incredible feat that seems to have gone largely unrecognised.

“The only Aussie left arm bowler with more Test wickets is Mitchell Johnson, with 313.

“Mitch (Starc) sits 17th on the list of all time Test wicket takers and at just 28-years of age, looks set to climb even higher up that list across the Australian summer.”

She captioned her tweet: “I’ll just leave this here”.