On paper, Australia may have just the one loss in eight games so far in the World Cup, but it still doesn't mean they have put up their best performance yet. Even in the game against New Zealand on Saturday (June 29), they were reduced to 92 for 5 after their top order failed to fire, but were rescued by the pair of Alex Carey and Usman Khawaja who took them to a defendable 243 en route respective half-centuries.
"We've always spoken about peaking towards the back end of the tournament, and we're still searching for that perfect performance," he said. "We're not quite there yet. We're showing glimpses of what we are capable of with the ball and with the bat and in the field, but we have still got room to improve, and that's exciting for this group.
"We've got to play our best game in the semi now and hopefully better than that in the final, and that's what tournament play is all about. If we keep continuing to improve every game, whether we play New Zealand or India or anyone, we're going to have to plan really well and then execute on the day. It's a great result beating New Zealand, but one win is not going to win you the World Cup."
However, Starc believes that it won't mean "much if Australia don't win the World Cup." Only five other players now have more than Starc's tally of 46 World Cup wickets, but Starc has an average of 12.97, that none of the others come close to.
"Records don't mean much if we don't win the World Cup," said Starc. "I'm just stoked to be playing a part in this group and continue to contribute. "A big part of our victories is our calmness and I think that's probably led by Finchie [captain Aaron Finch]. He's been fantastic as a captain.
I think there's a real sense of calmness around the whole group, not just from the bowlers but from Finchie to all the fielders.
"Even when things are not quite happening for us, it's still very calm. We still know what we want to do. It goes back to the execution. It's that clearness as a whole group out on the field is what's probably instilling that confidence in the bowler to execute what they want to do."
"I think it's worked very well for the last two games, obviously. But I think the fantastic thing about our 15 guys is we've got guys that several guys that can open the bowling. We have got several guys that make up good combinations. We've had all 15 part take part so far in the tournament. Guys are ready to go if called upon. The guys that were picked today did another fantastic job, and I don't think we played the perfect game if you like, especially as a bowling group, but yeah, we're finding ways to scrap and to restrict teams, and we keep improving every game.
"I think the turning point was probably that Indian game where we had a good chat as a bowling group and a batting group and we've just continued to improve as a whole group of players from that game, so it's been fantastic."