Adelaide Still In Pink As England Prepare For Big Ashes Turn-On

Alison Mitchell analyses the ongoing experiment with day-night Tests and discovers the numbers are still stacking up.

- Alison Mitchell

What a difference a week makes. The angst that beset a failing Australian cricket team in the build-up to the Adelaide Test match has been replaced by a sense of celebratory optimism after the team’s consolation win over South Africa.

The upheaval in the side and the bluster surrounding ‘sweetgate’ meant there was little time in the days before the match for forensic attention to be paid to the day-night element, as had happened 12 months previously. Pitch preparation and the performance of the pink ball became but a footnote to lengthier columns weighing up the relative merits of using sugary saliva to polish a red ball.

Even after the match began there were none of the hesitant tones which had surrounded the pink ball a year ago. Kookaburra had made small but significant adaptations to the ball, making the seam black and adding an extra layer of colour and hard lacquer to aid visibility and wear.

This, in turn, meant the ground staff had no need to prepare a surface to specially protect the pink ball, making the contest feel more authentic. The cricket then commanded attention for the battle that it was; a compelling match with a competitive balance between bat and ball, which stretched into the evening of the fourth day and attracted an attendance of 125,993 – a new record for a non-Ashes Test at the Adelaide Oval (it feels churlish to point out that the average daily attendance was therefore lower than last year’s Test against New Zealand which finished inside three days).

Australia captain Steve Smith summed it up when he said: “I think it was perfect.”