Default sorting in Angular Material - Sort header

You're mistaking matSortStart for matSortDirection.

Try this:

<table matSort (matSortChange)="sortData($event)" matSortActive="name" matSortDirection="asc" matSortDisableClear>

https://plnkr.co/edit/sg0hC5d8LTjLKhbH9Eug?p=preview

matSortStart can be used to reverse the cycle used when sort (e.g. when the user clicks to sort, it starts at desc instead of asc).

You can programmatically sort the table by invoking the sort(Sortable) method of the data source. Assuming you've got a dataSource component property for the data source:

// to put next to the class fields of the component
@ViewChild(MatSort) sort: MatSort

// to put where you want the sort to be programmatically triggered, for example inside ngOnInit
this.sort.sort(({ id: 'name', start: 'asc'}) as MatSortable);
this.dataSource.sort = this.sort;

@ViewChild(MatSort) sort: MatSort;

this.dataSource.sort = this.sort;

const sortState: Sort = {active: 'name', direction: 'desc'};
this.sort.active = sortState.active;
this.sort.direction = sortState.direction;
this.sort.sortChange.emit(sortState);

should work. demo

And to show sorting direction arrow, add next css (workaround)

th.mat-header-cell .mat-sort-header-container.mat-sort-header-sorted .mat-sort-header-arrow {
    opacity: 1 !important;
    transform: translateY(0) !important;
}