Colour of ball ‘irrelevant’: Warner

Newly-appointed Australia vice-captain David Warner doesn’t believe the introduction of a pink ball for the first ever day-night Test against New Zealand in Adelaide next month will have a crucial bearing on the series.

Having mastered both red ball and white, Warner will face a pink ball under lights for the first time as he returns from a broken thumb in NSW's opening round Sheffield Shield clash with South Australia starting on Wednesday at Adelaide Oval.

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And despite some conjecture over the deterioration of the ball, Warner said on Tuesday he doesn't understand what all the fuss is about.

"It is quite funny,” he said. “In general, it doesn't matter what ball you play with.

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"I feel if you are preparing for a cricket game, any game type you play – whether it is 50 overs or whether it is four-day form – you are still in your own mind of trying to score runs, trying to build an innings and that is what you need to do, that is what cricket is about.

"It is irrelevant about what ball you use."

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Warner urged fans, players and administrators to be patient as cricket entered a new frontier, and insisted that he and his colleagues should be equipped to deal with the change of ball.

"I haven't played with a pink ball but I have played a lot of one-day cricket and you should be able to adapt to these conditions very well," he said.

"It is going to be challenging with the pink ball, I understand that, but we have played day-night cricket before and there is no excuse why we can't go out and play this game at night.

"We are always going to have a few issues with the colouring of the ball – look how long it took them to get a white ball (right) – we just have to be patient, simple as that."

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Retired Test quick Ryan Harris echoed Warner’s sentiment about the need for players to accept and adapt to the pink ball, saying the Manuka Oval surface also played a critical factor in the rapid decline in quality of the pink ball during last Friday night’s Prime Minister’s XI v New Zealand match.

“It’s here to stay, so we’re going to have to find a way to get on with it,” Harris told SEN’s The Run Home.

“The actual surface in Canberra was very, very abrasive – it was a horrible wicket, to be honest. So I’m probably not going to take too much on the way the ball was coming out of that because it was just a shocking wicket.

“We used red balls a day later and they were in just as bad condition.

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“So it’s been tested for a long time now, and I think on a surface such as Adelaide, where there’ll be more grass on the wicket, it’s a lush outfield and square, it will probably hold together better than it did in Canberra.”

The former paceman, who took 113 wickets in 27 Tests, still expressed some reservations about the quality of the ball however, ahead of tomorrow’s day-night opening Shield round.

“I don’t think it’s going to last 80 overs, and whether or not it’s going to swing for very long – I think the first innings last Friday it swung for about six overs, and then the second innings, under lights, New Zealand got it to go for about 11 overs,” he added.

“From a bowling perspective it’s going to be different if the ball just starts going straight from an early time in the innings, because you rely on that as a bowler if it’s moving around, or if it gets old, you usually look for reverse (swing), and I don’t think it’s going to happen with the pink ball.”