“His work ethic, his preparation before the game with his own plans and his training are above par. I don’t even see that with a lot of the younger boys, that’s the reason why he has sustained for so long,” Badani said at the press conference after the game. “If you go back and see the recent Ashes series, he single-handedly won them the Ashes – there was no Pat Cummins, there was no Josh Hazlewood; that pretty much tells you what that man can do.

“Speaking of the kind of work that he puts in with the younger lads: he’s always talking to them, he’s always trying to pass on the knowledge – how can you do reverse swing, how do I hold lengths, what do I do when a certain batter is going hard; do I look to pick wickets or do I look to try and be submissive and be defensive. There’s immense conversation that Starcy brings to the table.”

On Sunday, it didn’t start too well for Starc as Yashasvi Jaiswal took him for two fours in the first over, and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Dhruv Jurel took 16 runs off his second, the third of the innings, with a six and two fours. But he was always going to bowl later, and when he did, there was pace, there were cutters, there was reverse swing, it was the full monty. Riyan Parag, caught smartly by Axar Patel at long-on, and Donovan Ferreira were dismissed of the second and third balls and Ravi Singh fell on the fifth ball – all in the 15th over. And then in the 19th, Dasun Shanaka holed out off Starc.

“One thing for [left-arm quicks] is that the ball tails in. The one which got Ravi – yes, he’s a little bit inexperienced in terms of the matches that he’s played – [was about] the speed in the air,” Bangar said. “Air speed is equally important, and when a batsman is trying to line you up and when the ball is reversing a little bit, the direction in which maybe a Parag wanted to hit the shot or even Ferreira going across, going against the angle as well [become difficult].”

Starc not arriving for the start of the tournament was a setback for DC. He had to take time off to address shoulder and elbow issues, and Cricket Australia had set a strict timeline on his return to action after a hectic Ashes, where he played all five Tests and was named the Player of the Series.

“I would want my players to be available to me from day one and Starc is probably one of the biggest players in my squad and we’ve invested in him and we know that he’s a match-winner,” Badani said. “But if there are certain things which are above my pay grade and certain things are decided by associations and governing bodies, there’s very little that we can do.

“If Cricket Australia does not release him, which was also the case with Hazlewood [Royal Challengers Bengaluru] and Pat Cummins [Sunrisers Hyderabad], as a coach or franchise, we can’t do much about that. Hopefully we have a solution to it in the future.”