Starc and his love-hate relationship with pink ball

Adelaide: Mitchell Starc further cemented his legacy as the greatest pink-ball bowler with one of the finest exhibitions of fast bowling that also exposed Indian batters' limitations against the pink sphere. The left-arm pacer struck with the first ball of the match and finished the innings when he claimed the sixth wicket.

It's rather ironic that the 34-year-old claims he doesn't enjoy pink ball cricket as much as the red ball despite a phenomenal record with in the former.  

"It's great for cricket but I’m still a traditionalist at heart, so don’t take away too many from the red ball game," he had said a few years ago.

Starc is a wonderful red-ball bowler and he will definitely go down as the second greatest left-arm fast bowler in ODIs behind Wasim Akram. But with the pink ball in hand, he is a different beast. If Bradmanesque is the term to describe great batting performances, "Starcesque" could become the word to illustrate the bowling performances with the pink ball.

Including his 6/48 here on Friday, Starc now has 72 wickets in 13 pink-ball Tests with the second innings of the latest match still to go. He averages 17.81 runs per wicket and strikes a wicket every 34.67 balls. Four of his 11 five-wicket hauls have come while operating with the pink ball. While his red-ball numbers are impressive they pale in comparison to pink ball. He has taken 295 wickets in 78 red-ball Tests at an average of 29.90 and a strike rate of 51.62. But, if you add pink ball numbers to his overall Test tally, his career average comes down to 27.53 and strike rate 48.2.

"No, I don't know. I can't tell you," was Starc's reply when asked as to why he was so good with pink ball.

But, on prodding a bit, he elaborated a bit more. 

"If you've got a brand new pink ball under lights, obviously it moves quite a bit," he said. "I think it's probably more consistent at that point in time. Like we had today with the new ball to start and then it goes through periods where it swings. Obviously Patty (Pat Cummins) had it nipping around early as well. And then 40 overs in and it's still swinging, or the old one swings. 

"I think from Tests gone past and probably no different today. There's times in a pink-ball game where the ball can get soft and it's hard to score, it's harder to take wickets. There's a bit of a dead patch in the game and then for whatever reason, the ball starts to do a little bit more again and as a bowler I don't think you ever feel that far away or that far out of the game. So if you keep your scoreboard in check, you feel like you're always a good chance."

It's no surprise that Australians, who have played the most number of day-night Tests, occupy the top four slots for bowlers with most pink ball wickets. But the gulf between Starc and other Aussie bowlers is staggering. Nathan Lyon sits at second with 43 scalps while Josh Hazlewood is the most prolific pink ball bowler with 37 scalps.

Former Australian batter Michael Hussey had explained a couple of years ago as to why Starc is so dangerous with the pink ball. 

"In the conditions at night when he can get the ball to swing back into right handers, he is deadly," he had noted. "At good pace, when the ball comes back, it troubles all the right-handers. But when there's no shine on the ball, it's not swinging back or flat or its sunshine, he gets that ball to angle across the right-handers and that's very difficult to face as well. He is good with the new ball in swinging conditions, but he is also great with the old ball as well. So he gets two bites at the cherry."

On the day, the gangling New South Welshman had "three bites" at the cherry, demolishing the Indian batting in three short but energetic spells.

Yashasvi Jaiswal got a zappa up front -- a fast inswinging full ball for which the opener wasn't prepared. In fact, not many would have survived that ball. He didn't have any more success after that, finishing his opening spell which read rather modest (5-1-25-1). That, however, wasn't the true reflection of his bowling.

With the second-wicket stand between KL Rahul and Shubman Gill blossoming, Pat Cummins reintroduced Starc into the attack and he prised out Rahul and Virat Kohli, both undone by the extra bounce in a spell of 6-0-14-2.

With Starc off the attack, India again had built a decent stand of 30 runs between R Ashwin and Nitish Reddy when Starc was brought back to separate the duo. And he obliged again. This time removing three wickets -- Ashwin, Harshit Rana and Nitish to hasten India's end.