Mitchell Starc’s skills and Australia’s high winning percentage makes pink-ball Ashes Test a one-sided affair

A legit argument could be that Australia are most versed in this form because they play it more frequently than others (14 out of the 24 overall).

The dichotomy in perception is understandable. England talisman Joe Root notes day-and-night Tests are redundant in Ashes; his contention is the fight for the urn is historic and popular enough not to pursue the route of gimmicks to pull more eyeballs into the longest version. England’s aversion to the colour runs too deep to the extent that they have scrapped it from the county too. Australia are unfussed. Travis Head, England’s Optus destroyer, quips that the hue of the ball doesn’t matter. “Pink ball, white ball, red ball…. who really cares?” he asked reporters two days before the game. Perhaps, it doesn’t matter when he is in the mood for belligerence. Or that he knows all too well that no one breathes more life into the pink ball than Mitchell Starc.

A halo forms around Starc when he holds a pink ball. He was sceptical of the intrusion at the start and groused that the ball went too soft too early. But he has devastatingly mastered its whims and fancies. The wreckage reads 81 wickets at 17.08, a strike every 33rd ball. With the red ball in hand, the numbers decline to a mortal level of 28.97 (average) and 49.9 (strike rate). The predisposition to bend the ball (white, red or pink) at high pace and a natural inclination to the fuller length ally him; so do the quirks of the ball with an extra coat of lacquer and the overhead conditions.

The ball does not move around for a considerable period, there is no appreciable difference in the amount of seam movement or swing movement but when it does, it does so schizophrenically. Some balls move deviously, some don’t. Some skid; some don’t. It doesn’t scuff up like red balls, but crack up. Its characteristics are closer to its white than red sibling.

It’s often during the twilight phase that it turns into an enfant terrible, from a disciplined pupil in the first session. Starc’s numbers reveal the truth — he is most devastating in his third spell (30 percent of his pink ball scalps at an average of 12.40) and least effective in his first (16 percent of the share at an average of 27.58). If a wicket falls once every 52.8 balls in the first and second sessions, it drops to 45.1 in the third passage.

Visibility concerns

But it’s not the swing alone that deepens the pink ball puzzle. Some batsmen have raised visibility concerns. “When the floodlights shine off the pink leather, it is harder to see the pink leather. If you can’t see the seam as a batsman, you’re in big trouble,” former England opener Alastair Cook wrote in The Sunday Times. To ward off the floodlight glare, Smith has been training with “eye blacks”, strips under the eyes.

Sighting the seam position was worse when there was white seam on pink leather. “It was like a bullet,” Root once said. Weave in the intrigue of dew, humidity (Brisbane could be torridly humid in December), and the extra grass the groundsmen leave on the surface so that the pinkness of the ball is not discoloured too quickly, the puzzle becomes a mystery.

As terrifying a reality as Starc lumbering in from the Vulture Street End is that his pacer-friends own prolific records too. Josh Hazlewood has 40 at 18.50; Cummins 43 at 17.34, and Scott Boland 18 at 13.16. But England shouldn’t feel daunted. The band of Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Ben Stokes and Brydon Carse could throw uncomfortable questions at Australia’s in-flux batting firm. A festival of seam bowling looms in Gabba, under crimson skies and a ball more magenta than pink.