Pink ball still has doubters
NATHAN LYON roared back into form with a seriesclinching five-wicket haul against Pakistan last night, however pink ball Prince Mitchell Starc is still yet to be convinced the ball is right for Test cricket.
The spinner powered Australia to a convincing 2-0 series clean sweep with figures of 5-69 as he claimed his 50th career wicket at the ground where he once served as a humble curator.
Josh Hazlewood claimed his third wicket and Pat Cummins nabbed a run-out to complete an innings and 48run thrashing of the listless Pakistan, who also lost by an innings in Brisbane.
Lyon’s performance to finish the job was all class, however the major talking point was the lack of action for the quicks, with a couple of fastbowling greats slamming the quality of the pink ball.
Australian venues Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth are clamoring for the right to host day-night fixtures, however, debate is still raging over whether the ball is up to scratch, with Brett Lee and Wasim Akram scathing in their assessment.
After going wicketless in the first innings, Lyon stormed back into form with the 16th five-wicket haul of his career – and first since he starred in the first Ashes Test in Birmingham.
In contrast, Australia’s fast bowlers had to resort to bowling cross seam when the ball was only 30 overs old.
Starc has taken more pink ball wickets than anyone else in the short history of daynight cricket, but one of the pink ball’s harshest early critics still doesn’t believe the qualities of a Test match ball are being replicated.
The left-armer admits he might have an advantage in day-nighters, because the pink ball is more like the white ball that he so loves bowling with in one-day cricket.
“I still think it (the pink ball) is probably more like a white ball than a red ball, so it’s probably playing in my favour there,” Starc said.
“It still went soft for us on that wicket. We saw through the early afternoon session today where it didn’t move around much at all and the wicket was quite flat.
“So when it’s going through those stages, (it’s) trying to control the scoreboard and we did that really well at times.”
Fast bowling wizard Lee said on Fox Cricket that he was dismayed with the conditions offered for the quicks in Adelaide.
“Starc is bowling with a ball that isn’t conducive to fast bowling,” he told Fox Cricket.
“The pink ball, we hear it is going to swing around corners. It’s done absolutely nothing. I think it has been pretty ordinary.
“But when the (Australian) guys have had that pink ball in their hand, they’ve looked like a completely different outfit to what we saw with Pakistan and their attack.”
Pakistan great Akram said it’s clear administrators cannot accept the current pink ball as the final product and called on ball manufacturers to get back to the drawing board.
“Bowlers have realised nothing is going to happen,” Akram said on SEN Radio.
“It has appeared to me that it gets soft very quickly. It may be fun playing cricket at night, but they really have to work hard on this pink ball.
“It doesn’t stay hard enough for a long enough period. After 20-25 overs, especially during the day time, the seam gets soft and the ball gets soft. Hence the bouncer is not there (as an option).”