England's advantage reversed: Starc

Mitchell Starc believes Australia's greater experience with the day-night Test format will outweigh any familiarity that England's bowlers might enjoy on the well-grassed seamer's pitch expected to be rolled out at Adelaide for the second Magellan Ashes Test in December.

And as Starc graphically illustrated in snaring career-best first-class bowling figures of 8-73 against South Australia in Adelaide today, that advantage might be heightened further now that the pink ball is displaying a previously unseen trait – reverse swing.

In demolishing the Redbacks to set up NSW's six-wicket win, Starc found lethal late swing with the ball more than 50 overs old and under lights on Saturday evening, and again when the game resumed this afternoon to confound SA's top, middle and lower-orders.

Having struggled to find conventional swing when the lacquered pink ball was new, the left-armer was delighted to discover that despite becoming 'soft' the recently refined Kookaburra ball suddenly began to reverse which enabled him to bowl full and attack the stumps with brutal effect.

None more so than the virtually unplayable in-swinging delivery that SA captain Travis Head received first ball he faced on Saturday night, and which set Starc on track for his record haul having gone wicketless when the ball was new.

"For me, it was nice to get a good rhythm that got better throughout the fixture," Starc said tonight as he reflected on a return that usurped his previous career-high 6-50 claimed in the second Test against Sri Lanka at Galle last year.

"It swung a little bit, probably nipped a bit (off the pitch) as well, as we see while it had its firmness and the seam was hard, and then we had to find ways when it stopped doing that and got softer.

"It was nice to get that ball shifting off the straight.

"It went quite soft early so it was nice to get it moving both ways there and to find a way to get a few wickets."

Starc has been no great fan of the pink ball since the inaugural day-night Test was staged at Adelaide Oval in 2015, even though he's taken 34 wickets at less than 15 runs apiece for both Australia and NSW in first-class day-night matches on the now seamer-friendly Adelaide pitch.

When asked if that view had softened in the wake of his latest haul, the 27-year-old simply smiled and noted that he's "still sponsored by (pink ball manufacturer) Kookaburra".

But he had more expansive views on the recent observation by teammate Trent Copeland – NSW's best bowler in the first innings of the JLT Sheffield Shield match against SA with 6-24 – that the pitch conditions and behaviour of the pink ball under lights would likely prove a boon for England's veteran new-ball pair James Anderson and Stuart Broad.

"I think our squad has played enough over in England to know there's a bit more grass on the wicket, a bit like it is out here, but this is a different cricket ball," Starc said when asked which team might find more favour in Adelaide come the second Test.

"They (England) haven't played with a pink Kooka before, I think their pink Duke (brand ball) swung quite a bit which they won't find with the pink Kookaburra.

"So for us, it's probably an advantage to have a bit of pink ball cricket under our belts with a few seasons in the Shield and a couple of Test matches.

"It (the Adelaide pitch) is probably going to be as much like a Test wicket as the one we played on this week.

"So batters are going to have find a way to score runs, and for bowlers it's about bowling in good spots and trying to take as many wickets as quickly as we can."

SA's most recent Test-capped batter Callum Ferguson said at game's end that the amount of grass Adelaide's head curator Damian Hough had left on the pitch – which was 8mm in 2015 and trimmed to 6mm for last year's Test – had been shaved even lower for the start of the 2017-18 summer.

Ferguson said he was unsure if it was the slight reduction in grass cover that provided a slightly more abrasive surface which, in turn, saw the ball suddenly start to swing 'reverse' late on Saturday evening, but that process was certainly not a consequence of the outfield conditions at Adelaide Oval.

The pitch prepared for the Shield match which barely made it past the first session on day three was the only bare strip on the centre wicket block, and the outfield was so lush throughout that a full-blooded pull shot launched by David Warner late in the Blues' run chase failed to reach the boundary rope.

"The pink ball swings a little bit, but this is probably the first time we've seen it reverse," said Ferguson who has been part of the Redbacks line-up in all previous pink-ball meetings against the Blues at the Adelaide Oval.

"I think the grass was a little bit shorter on this wicket than it had been in the previous two games that we played out here against New South Wales, so maybe that just created a little bit of abrasiveness to get it going reverse.

"Certainly, Cummins and Starc – if there's a bit of reverse around – they're probably going to find it and they were able to do some damage.

"Starcy just seemed to be at his best last night when it started to go a little bit reverse.

"He certainly hunts very well when he gets a sniff of that, and he attacked hard."

Kookaburra have made some minor changes to the pink ball for the current Australian summer, including a stronger thread used for the seam and an update to the lacquered exterior finish, and Ferguson was unsure if the seam modification was a reason why it moved off the pitch for the (albeit truncated) entirety of the match.

"It definitely seamed around a lot more in this game so whether that was part of it," he said.

"It certainly seamed throughout the game, whether it (the ball) was new or old.

"They did take more grass off so maybe it is going to seam around more with the harder thread.

"We knew the grass was going to be a few millimetres lower, and the colour of the wicket hasn't been too different over the last couple of years.

"It had a light tinge of green, but more of a straw colour to it.

"It's mainly the thatchiness of the grass that gets the seam movement."

As if the revelation that the latest iteration of the pink ball is prone to reverse swing and that Australia holds significant experience with the changed nature of the Adelaide pitch and day-night conditions at the ground wasn't enough to grab the attention of the England squad recently landed in Perth, Starc also heaped praise on his likely Test bowling partner Cummins.

While the wickets fell predominantly to Copeland in the first innings and Starc in the second, Cummins bowled far better than his match return of 2-93 would suggest (having gone wicketless in SA's second innings) according to his NSW new-ball partner.

"I thought he bowled really well, he probably deserved more than what he got," Starc said of Cummins' efforts.

"He bowled some really unplayable balls, and some good fast balls as well.

"I think he bowled a lot better than his figures suggested and on another day he probably would have got the rewards and I wouldn't have got many."

2017-18 International Fixtures:

Magellan Ashes Series

First Test Gabba, November 23-27. Buy tickets

Second Test Adelaide Oval, December 2-6 (Day-Night). Buy tickets

Third Test WACA Ground, December 14-18. Buy tickets

Fourth Test MCG, December 26-30. Buy tickets

Fifth Test SCG, January 4-8 (Pink Test). Buy tickets

Gillette ODI Series v England

First ODI MCG, January 14. Buy tickets

Second ODI Gabba, January 19. Buy tickets

Third ODI SCG, January 21. Buy tickets

Fourth ODI Adelaide Oval, January 26. Buy tickets

Fifth ODI Perth TBC, January 28. Join the ACF

Prime Minister's XI

PM's XI v England Manuka Oval, February 2. Buy tickets

Gillette T20 INTL Series

First T20I Australia v NZ, SCG, February 3. Buy tickets

Second T20I – Australia v England, Blundstone Arena, February 7. Buy tickets

Third T20I – Australia v England, MCG, February 10. Buy tickets

Fourth T20I – NZ v England, Wellington, February 13

Fifth T20I – NZ v Australia, Eden Park, February 16

Sixth T20I – NZ v England, Seddon Park, February 18

Final – TBC, Eden Park, February 21