ASHES 2017-18

England haven't played with pink Kookaburra: Starc

by Cricbuzz Staff • Last updated on

"For us, it's probably an advantage to have a bit of pink ball cricket under our belts" - Starc © Getty

Mitchell Starc, the Australian pace-spearhead, noted that the home team has an advantage (in terms of experience) over England's well-oiled pace attack when it comes to playing with the pink Kookaburra ball under lights in Adelaide.

Over a period of time, James Anderson and Stuart Broad, in particular, have displayed considerable skills to run through sides on a track with a decent covering of grass. To capuslise the point, Broad picked up 8 for 15 in the Trent Bridge Test against Australia in 2015 and followed it up with a match-turning 6 for 17 at the Wanderers against South Africa in 2015-16. Incidentally, both tracks had good covering of grass.

Trent Copeland, Starc's team-mate at NSW, with 269 first-class wickets to his name, had also indicated that the veteran new ball duo could trouble the Australian batsmen on a grassed-up Adelaide wicket.

"They (England) are going to be really hard work here," Copeland said to cricket.com.au. "Guys like (James) Anderson and (Stuart) Broad, bowling around the wicket to a lot of our lefties and swinging the ball both ways.

"Even someone like Chris Woakes who pitches the ball up and swings it. I think they are pretty well suited all around the country to be honest, but here in particular it's going to be very much like English conditions," he added.

Starc, who picked up his career-best first-class figures of 8 for 73 in the second innings versus South Australia, generated late swing even with the older ball. Surprisingly, he also found reverse swing later on in the match.

When asked whether the conditions might suit the visiting pacers, Starc pointed out that a different ball (Duke ball) is used in England. "I think our squad has played enough over in England to know there's a bit more grass on the wicket, a bit like it is out here, but this is a different cricket ball."

"They (England) haven't played with a pink Kooka[burra] before, I think their pink Duke (brand ball) swung quite a bit which they won't find with the pink Kookaburra. So for us, it's probably an advantage to have a bit of pink ball cricket under our belts with a few seasons in the Shield and a couple of Test matches," he added.

Kookaburra manufacturers have also tinkered with the seam of the ball for the Australian summer and have upgraded the lacquered exterior boundary. Starc said that if the conditions remain similar for the Day-Night Ashes Test, then it could be hard work for batsmen to score runs.

"It (the Adelaide pitch) is probably going to be as much like a Test wicket as the one we played on this week. So batters are going to have find a way to score runs, and for bowlers it's about bowling in good spots and trying to take as many wickets as quickly as we can," he said.

The Ashes rivals will lock horns in the Day-Night Test in Adelaide on December 2.

© Cricbuzz

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