Pink ball holds no fears for de Kock

If the inaugural effort from South Africa wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock provides a yardstick, the Proteas will face few problems coming to grips with the pink ball ahead of their inaugural day-night Test outing in Adelaide next month.

Severely under the weather and required to bat either side of the twilight zone when the pink Kookaburra reportedly misbehaves, de Kock had no issue seeing, timing and clubbing the ball during a dominant knock of 122 from 103 deliveries that only ended when he voluntarily withdrew to the team sick room.

An uncomplicated player in technique and outlook, de Kock then claimed he found no difference facing the inexperienced seamers and spinners of the up-and-coming Cricket Australia XI to batting against the red ball in traditional first-class fixtures.

Even though he arrived at the crease around 5.30pm as the Adelaide Oval floodlights were turned on and his team’s innings was in the balance, and departed under the cloak of night with the tourists en route to a hefty day one total of 8-415 (with two batters retired).

Despite the fact the South Africans are about as familiar with the pink ball as they have found Adelaide’s unseasonable cold since arriving here last Monday.

“I actually thought it was quite nice during the twilight period,” said the 23-year-old who had mercilessly flayed Australia’s bowlers over recent weeks in the five-game ODI series in South Africa.

“Early on it was getting used to it, and I found that a little bit more difficult.

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“But I think that’s part of any white ball, red ball cricket anyway – the first couple of balls, so when I started getting used to it and started getting ‘in’ it was much easier.”

“To me there’s no difference.

“I’m not one to over-think it, a ball’s a ball and I just play the way I should be playing in that situation.

“It was just normal going at that time (the twilight period).

“You could see everything, nothing was different … from the normal four-day game at that time of the day.”

If the Proteas were hoping their first look at the pink ball under day-night conditions might arm them with valuable insights that extended beyond their physical surrounds, they might have left Adelaide Oval on Saturday night a tad underwhelmed.

The pitch on which this game is being played sports a fine cover of grass, but it’s been shaved to a level of 6mm which is 2mm less than the much-talked-about layer that was in place for the historic first day-night Test between Australia and New Zealand 11 months earlier.

Unlike the Adelaide Oval outfield which was still bearing its shaggy coat from the recently completed football season and – due to the presence of just three pitches cut into the traditional centre square – acted as a noticeable handbrake whenever batters punched the ball hard into the ground.

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In addition, the attack the tourists faced, while boasting some of the nation’s most promising talent, was armed with neither the potency of Mitchell Starc nor the penny-pinching of Josh Hazlewood.

And when twilight’s witching hour arrived – the period immediately before and after the dinner break when the pink ball supposedly starts behaving like a creepy clown – the young CA XI kept their new-ball pair Tom O’Donnell and Xavier Bartlett safely away from the action.

And instead employed part-time leg spinner Kyle Gardiner and his teenage wrist spin teammate Arjun Nair in tandem with back-up seamers Ryan Lees and James Bazley.

Along with the even-more part-time finger spin of skipper, Matthew Short.

Which might also help explain why South Africa’s most fluent and productive partnership of an elongated top-order (which included all specialist batters in their 15-man touring party in keeping with the fluid rules regarding personnel in the two-day fixture) was a seventh-wicket stand of 167 between Test incumbents JP Duminy (97) and de Kock.

Although de Kock’s belligerence could have been in part a carryover from his imperious form as an opener in his team’s recent 5-0 ODI whitewash of the world champions Australia.

As well as a reaction to the painful viral infection he is currently enduring, which will prevent him taking the ‘keeper’s gloves on day two of this game with their back-up wicketkeeper Dane Vilas currently still in South Africa to gain first-class match practice before he joins the Test squad next week in Perth.

Which in turn means Harry Nielsen, the 21-year-old son of former Australia coach and South Australia ‘keeper Tim Nielsen, will make his ‘international’ debut on Sunday, albeit playing for a rival country as South Africa’s stand-in stumper.

When de Kock joined Duminy just short of the day’s midway point, the South African scoresheet looked a little ragged at 6-166 even if the ball had not exactly been dictating terms to the bat.

And one of those ‘wickets’ was former Test skipper Hashim Amla who had been untroubled in caressing his way to 51 from 66 balls before opting to retire.

So comfortable was Amla at the crease, and so benign was the Adelaide Oval pitch that had been dropped into place just three days prior to this game beginning, he would regularly walk outside his off stump to manufacture his favoured leg-side flick against the CA XI seamers.

The disappointment for the tourists, apart from not getting a glimpse at some genuine pace and swing from the pink ball under lights until the second new-ball became due in the final hour and most specialist batters had been and gone, was the lack of time some of their Test top-order spent in centre-wicket combat.

Opener Stephen Cook and ODI specialist Rilee Rossouw – touted by some for a possible Test debut in Australia to help enliven an often stodgy opening line-up – fell in similar fashion, though with contrasting intent.

Cook squared up in defence, Rossouw aiming a loose drive with both edging to the slips cordon.

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Left-handed opener Dean Elgar slowly found his feet until he top-edged a pull shot on the slowish surface, and captain Faf du Plessis and exciting talent Temba Bavuma both fell trying to take the attack to Nair.

While the purpose of this low-key hit-out – to provide the Proteas who have no previous match experience against the pink ball under lights - with a sighter ahead of the third Test was achieved without question, definitive queries about their capacity to cope will be answered in a month.

Against a far more polished and potent foe.

South Africa: Faf du Plessis (c), Kyle Abbott, Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Stephen Cook, Quinton de Kock, Jean-Paul Duminy, Dean Elgar, Keshav Maharaj, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada, Rilee Rossouw, Tabraiz Shamsi, Dale Steyn, Dane Vilas.

CA XI: Matthew Short (c), Arjun Nair, Josh Inglis, Ryan Gibson, Sam Harper, Ben McDermott, James Bazley, Brendan Doggett, Ryan Lees, Xavier Bartlett, Thomas O'Donnell, Kyle Gardiner.