Tim Paine slams critics of pink ball, day-night Tests
Australia captain Tim Paine has launched an impassioned defence of day-night cricket after fast bowling greats Brett Lee and Wasim Akram questioned the quality of the controversial ball.
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Australian captain Tim Paine has defended the integrity of the pink ball despite criticism that it’s too soft for Test cricket.
Pink ball Prince Mitchell Starc has taken more wickets under lights than anyone else but believes the ball more closely resembles a white ball used in one-day cricket.
Fast bowling greats Brett Lee and Wasim Akram also slammed the quality of the pink ball during the Adelaide Test, lamenting the major flat spots that can plague the day-time sessions.
However, Paine launched a passionate defence of the pink pill, adamant players and commentators need to change the way they think about the newest incarnation of the game’s oldest format.
“I think what we need to stop doing is trying to compare the pink ball to the red ball. It’s not going to behave the same. It isn’t the same ball,” said Paine.
“… But personally I enjoy the Test match. I think what we want is people watching Test match cricket and the pink ball day-night Test certainly makes that happen. It’s bringing new people to the game.
“… And from the players point of view, day-night Test cricket creates different challenges so the best players will again find a way to succeed.
“Mitchell Starc has done it. His record is unbelievably good with the pink ball. David Warner has just got a triple century and Marnus got a 100. All the good players still score runs and take wickets.
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“It’s just a slight shift in how we think about it. It’s not going to behave like a red or white ball. It’s going to behave like a 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 Lee and Akram expressing doubts as Australia’s fast bowlers were forced to resort to bowling cross seam when the ball was just 30 overs old.
Starc did not outwardly criticise the pink ball, but he doubts whether Test match conditions are necessarily being replicated.
“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).”