England pacer Finn out of Ashes with knee injury

NEW DELHII: If Mitchell Starc sounded a warning to England with a hattrick on Monday, Australia’s pace spearhead gave Joe Root’s team plenty more to sweat by claiming another hattrick in the game on Tuesday.

Starc followed up his magnificent show in the first innings for New South Wales with a repeat performance in the Sheffield Shield game to stun Western Australia by 171 runs on the final day.

Having polished off the tail in the first innings, Starc continued to wreak havoc as New South Wales pushed for a win. The leftarm pacer struck with the fifth ball in his 15th over by removing Jason Behrendorff for zero with a bouncer. Next ball, he cleaned up David Moody with a yorker.

He achieved the feat in his next over when he slanted in a full ball to Jono Wells and the batsman edged it to Steve Smith at first slip, drawing wild celebrations from NSW team.

This is the first time that the Sheffield Shield has witnessed two hattricks by the same bowler in a match. In Tests, this feat has been achieved only once, when Australia’s TJ Matthews took two hattricks during the Test triseries in England in 1912.

In first class cricket, this is the first time a bowler is taking a double hattrick in a game since 1979, when Amin Lakhani achieved this feat for the Combined XI side against India in Multan. Starc’s form is great news for Australia, after his injury woes in the build-up to the Ashes, starting on November 23. He last played a Test in Bangalore in India in March.

In his first first-class game this season, the 27-year-old has taken a 10-wicket haul, including 8/73, as NSW defeated South Australia by six wickets. ADELAIDE: Paceman Steven Finn is out of England’s entire Ashes tour of Australia with a knee injury, team officials said on Tuesday. Finn, who missed the opening tour match in Perth last weekend, had scans which revealed a torn left knee cartilage. The Middlesex seamer sustained the injury during practice last week in Perth and will now return home, where he will consult a specialist to see whether he needs an operation.

A team spokesman said England would shortly announce his replacement for the rest of the Australian tour. It ends another miserable tour to Australia for Finn, who left the previous 2013/14 trip under a cloud when coach Ashley Giles declared him “unselectable”.

Finn only made the current tour when he was added to the squad in place of the suspended Ben Stokes.