Mitchell Starc has had a few reminders of his advancing years recently.

It has not just been Yashasvi Jaiswal, the upstart wonderkid almost a dozen years his junior who followed up his “you’re bowling too slow” barb with a genuine compliment in his post-Perth century press conference.

“When I was small kid, I was seeing Starc bowling, so I wanted to go and face it and enjoy his bowling,” Jaiswal said after his match-winning 161. “He bowled really well, and he was bowling really quick.”

Starc’s realisation a new generation is stalking his own like a crocodile with its eyes hovering just above the water surface had in fact come months earlier, after the final match of Australia’s one-day series against England in Bristol.

“I was having a having a cold drink with Rooster (Jake Fraser-McGurk) and Cooper Connolly,” Starc told cricket.com.au’s Unplayable Podcast earlier this week. “Rooster turns to me and goes, ‘Oh, I remember your debut – I was eight’.

“Then ‘Coops’ pulled out a photo that he had taken at the WACA with Nathan Lyon and I … He was about 12 at the time – (now) I’m sharing a changeroom with these two.”

It was fitting then that Jaiswal was the latest victim of Starc’s uncanny record of striking in the first over of a match, a feat he’s pulled off 54 times now in international cricket.

By stumps, nearly four million people had watched cricket.com.au’s Instagram clip of the young leftie being dismissed for a duck. Starc’s career has been littered with such instances; that ball to James Vince, that ball to Brendon McCullum, that ball to Rory Burns. But to distil Starc’s career down to only those moments misses the bigger picture of a 34-year-old still breaking new ground.

His 6-48 marked better figures than any he produced in 173 previous bowling innings across 90 Tests. He now has 29 more pink-ball Test wickets than the next best bowler, with his 72 day-night victims coming at 17.81 apiece.

The potency of his trademark inswinger to the right-hander has been enhanced by his embrace of the wobble-seam delivery taught to him by pace partners Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.

There was no better example than the two-card trick he pulled on Ravichandran Ashwin. The oldest player in this series and a noted master tactician was done cold when Starc followed up a length delivery going across the right-hander with a devastating in-swinging delivery into his foot next ball.

Another in-swinger that bowled Harshit Rana saw Starc lift the ball for the first time in 20 Tests against India, against whom he had never previously taken a five-wicket haul.

“Ash’s dismissal was a very good example of why he is so effective with the pink ball,” India’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate, the former Netherlands batter, said of Starc.

“He’s someone who presents the seam nicely. He obviously uses that other ball (the wobble seam) very well in setting up batters.

“When the ball swings back to a certain degree – a lesser degree – the batters can generally figure it out. But when you’re guessing on both sides, it makes him far more effective.

“Just the areas he bowled today were superb. He takes a lot of confidence from the pink ball having done well with it in the past. He’s probably the main exponent of swing bowling in the two teams.”

Fitting also that Starc’s haul was sealed by outfoxing Nitish Kumar Reddy, the daring 21-year-old who is every bit Jaiswal’s equal in terms of promise, when the allrounder finally skied one in a daring late hand.

Reddy has exceeded India’s expectations in this series. He had his own Instagram moment in this Test when he launched a reverse-sweep for six off Scott Boland, the type of previously-untried stroke now becoming commonplace in the Test arena, quite like Jaiswal’s flick off Starc in the series opener.

“The game’s changed,” Starc told reporters on Friday. “The game’s allowed to change.

“I guess that’s partly the T20 era. Some of these guys grow up through IPL cricket and there’s no fear and there’s that expectation to be very good from the get-go. They’re quality players from the time they get into international cricket, no matter what their age is.

“We’ve seen a little bit of Jaiswal before last week, and obviously he had a fantastic innings in that second innings. Some of the shots that Kumar Reddy played today – they were some special shots.

“Whether that’s T20 cricket coming into Test cricket or no-fear cricket from the next generation, I’ve been around long enough to see it change a little bit.”

Starc, in that same podcast interview, conceded he rarely sledges these days. At least not with the edge he had in his early years. When Rana bounced him in Perth, he grinned as he reminded his IPL teammate he had a long memory. Rana smiled back.

It’s about as nasty as Starc gets now.

It is not to say his competitive side has diminished. After his pinpoint swinger flushed Jaiswal’s front pad on Friday afternoon in front of Adelaide Oval’s still-assembling throng, Starc jolted his head forward as he let loose with a vicious roar. Another cry of primal delight followed when Jaiswal elected not to review.

“At the stumps and hit the pads. That’s about it. Nothing special,” was all Starc was prepared to say about it.

In the not-so-distant future, those moments will belong to a new generation. But the era of Starc is not over just yet.

NRMA Insurance Men’s Test Series v India

First Test: India won by 295 runs

Second Test: December 6-10: Adelaide Oval, 3pm AEDT (D/N)

Third Test: December 14-18: The Gabba, Brisbane, 11.20am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10.30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 3-7: SCG, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT

Australia squad (for second Test): Pat Cummins (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Brendan Doggett, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal