'Australia tend to peak at the right time' said Mitchell Starc on Monday as he remains confident going into their semifinal against South Africa in the Cricket World Cup on Thursday.
'It's World Cups, which is what we play for with the pointy end, (we) seem to be peaking at the right time, which Australia tend to do in tournament play. And whilst we didn't start the way we wanted to, we've certainly had a lot of good contributions from individuals along the way and we find ourselves in another World Cup semi-final,' Starc stated.
Despite suffering back-to-back defeats at the beginning of their campaign to hosts India and South Africa, the five-time world champions finished third to qualify for the knockout stage of the tournament for the ninth time.
'I think looking back at (20)15, we probably thought that was the only team that could beat us. Certainly at that stage of the tournament and we didn't play them. So it's funny how, you know, now that we've played everyone and obviously they had the better of us in Lucknow early on in the tournament. We've probably both teams have kept a close eye on each other and sort of from, you know, a few games back, we knew were probably going to face each other in the semi-final. So yeah, whether they feel differently, you know, it's obviously been spoken about outside of their group. I don't know whether it's (been) inside, but they've had passed players talk about it. I know they're a very different group to certainly to (back in) 2015. So you can always read into to these things as much as you like. For us it's certainly talking and thinking about what we can do the right way or how we can approach it or our mindset to it rather than and what they're going to do so much so.'
The Aussie pacer was also asked about his retirement plans and though Starc confirmed that this World Cup will be his last, he won't retire after the tournament.
'No, I look to keep playing after this, but I don't doubt that I won't be making the next World Cup. I've no vision for that. Four years is a long time. I've always maintained that that's history. It's definitely at the top of the tree for me and I'll drop off the rest before I let go of test cricket or where my body's at. So yeah, for me it's just another semi-final or another one day game for Australia,' he confirmed.