Australia captain Pat Cummins has endorsed Adelaide Oval as Australia’s home for playing pink-ball Tests. Adelaide Oval will host this year’s pink-ball Test in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy between Australia and India.
It’s a venue where Australia have never lost a day-night Test match, starting from the game against New Zealand in 2015. “Adelaide do (pink-ball Tests) really well. The main thing that you’ll hear from all the players, and it’s super consistent, is you’ve got to get the conditions right for a pink-ball Test.”
“Pink-ball Test matches can be a wonderful balance between bat and ball, or if the conditions aren’t quite right, they can be quite boring Test matches. Adelaide has always done it really well, so if they move it away from Adelaide, whoever takes that up, as long as you get the conditions right, it shouldn’t be too different.”
“If (the pink ball) gets too soft it’s like a one-day ball, it can get really benign. It just reacts a little bit differently to a red ball. As I said, Adelaide every year has got it spot on,” Cummins told reporters during CA’s Play Cricket Week launch in Sydney on Monday.
The Adelaide Oval was the venue where India were bowled out for just 36 in the second innings of the day-night Test against Australia and crashed to an eight-wicket defeat in December 2020.
This year, the Gabba at Brisbane hosted the pink-ball Test between Australia and the West Indies, which the visitors won sensationally by eight runs on the back of Shamar Joseph’s stunning 7-68. The Gabba will also host next year’s day-night contest in the Ashes.
Asked if one venue should be fixed to host pink-ball Tests each summer, Cummins remarked, “Ideally having some uncertainty around the schedule does help with home advantage. Having some kind of consistency to help the groundstaff out, that probably would be beneficial.”
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