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Marnus Labuschagne has admitted that Australia’s experience of playing day-night Tests will see them start the second game of the Ashes on Thursday with an in-built advantage, while England are using a pink ball for the first time in nearly three years.
As well as hosting more day-night Tests than the rest of the world put together, Australia has also scheduled several Sheffield Shield games under lights and with a pink ball, first between 2013 and 2018 and again in each of the last two seasons. Cricket Australia’s head of national teams, Ben Oliver, explained when they were reintroduced that they are designed “to enhance the experience for domestic players and best prepare them for the challenges of international cricket”.
“Would I prefer to play [with a] red ball over a pink ball? Probably, just because you play with it more, you’re used to the colour of the ball, you’re used to those things, and there’s a few intricate things about the pink ball that make it a bit of a different game,” Labuschagne said. “When it first came along everyone was like, ‘No, we want a red ball’. It’s become something that Australia have been very good at. We’ve learned over time the different moments of the game and how to play them. Hopefully that can be an advantage for us going into this game.”
Australia also boast in Mitchell Starc the world’s most successful purveyor of pink-ball swing bowling. “Is he the best pink-ball bowler in the world? I think the stats probably say that,” Labuschagne said. “I think it’s his high pace, it’s late swing, and you combine them and in the right conditions at the right time the pink ball just does swing more, or it swings later and more inconsistently, which makes it hard to line up. I think it’s a combination of being a left-hander, swinging it at high pace and swinging it late, that’s probably what makes him so dangerous.”
Labuschagne, whose batting average in day-night Tests is, at 63.86, 38% better than his career average of 46.34, said the key to a team’s success is adapting to the unique changes in conditions the timing brings. “The pink ball is slightly different. The different conditions at different times of day certainly has more impact,” he said. “I don’t know why my record has been good against the pink ball, but it’s something I’ve enjoyed. It provides so much opportunity at different times – you have to change your game, you have to adapt and there are certain times where there are lulls and then certain times where the game speeds up.”
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The partnership with Nathan McSweeney against India in Adelaide last year, when the pair successfully negotiated the last 22 overs of the first day under floodlights, was used as an example. “It’s just different moments you have to win along the way,” Labuschagne said. “There’s moments where, if you play well in that moment, it really sets you up. Last year Nathan and I got through that night session and then we were able to capitalise on the next day session and we were able to bowl at night again, then we made inroads and flipped the script a little bit. If you win the toss [and bat first] it can set the match up really nicely for you to continue to have the night session.”
Labuschagne pushed back against the view recently expressed by both Pat Cummins and Travis Head that batting orders are an increasingly outdated concept. “I think where you bat in the order just pushes back the time that you come to the crease, and I think that’s why there is a batting order, because certain times suit certain players and the way they play,” he said. “But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter where you bat, you’ve just got to find a way to score runs.”
