The Ashes | James Anderson downplays enthusiasm over pink ball, urges pacers to stick to basics

England star pacer James Anderson has some words of caution for his fellow pacers in the England team for the second Test of the Ashes series to be played with the pink ball at the Adelaide Oval. 

He has urged his teammates to not have unrealistic expectations from the Pink ball that it will “swing around corners or seam anything like that” and hence they should not be walking away from their discipline in line and length of the attack.

He has had success with the Pink ball on the last tour and picked a five-wicket haul but still, he maintained that bowlers need to be wary of becoming too greedy in search of swing and seam. He said bowlers should look for swing in the air with the new ball but they should be ready to pull their lengths back as well when it doesn’t move in the air as they do with the red ball.

He also addressed the twilight phase of the game when it is believed that the ball offers more swing and seam from the surface and said that while all those assistance can play a part, it can’t be the only way of attack in a bowler’s mind. He said that bowlers should be prepared to give their best and challenge the batsmen irrespective of the time of the day or night and with or without pronounced help in specific periods of time.

"I had success with (Pink ball) last time here but, obviously, it is quite temperamental," Anderson said. "It's not a given that it's going to swing around corners, or seam, or anything like that. We know it's generally a good pitch here, and if the sun's out, then it won't do a great deal.”

"It doesn't necessarily do nothing during the day, but it might not do as much. Especially for a new-ball bowler, you got to try and see if it's swinging. If not, then maybe you go slightly more defensive. If it is swinging, you can attack a little bit more. It's just the same in that respect as any other Test match, to be honest. It's something that we'll try and read as we go along,” he added.

"There might be times during the game, at twilight when it gets dark under the lights, it might do a little bit more. But it's just it's trying to take advantage of those times when it does do a little bit more," he said.

"Both sides will be hoping for that, but there's nothing that we can control about that. We've got to be able to bowl well in all conditions, whether the sun's out at two o'clock in the afternoon or whether it's nine o'clock at night under lights."

However, he is not downplaying the prodigious things a Pink ball can do and he has watched a lot of Day-Night Tests in Australia to understand what sort of line and lengths he should follow while bowling in the Adelaide Test. He highlighted the bowling spell of Josh Hazlewood against India the last summer at the same venue and expressed his eagerness to emulate some of the methods Australia’s quick adopted to stop Australia’s winning streak at home in Ashes.

"I've watched most of the pink-ball Tests here, whether it was actually being here or in middle of the night back home, to get an idea of how I should be bowling these conditions," Anderson said. "That was certainly a spell I watched and hopefully I can do something similar. From that and the practice that we've had, we know that it swings around at times, even earlier on in the day,” he added.

Anderson was rested from the first game played at the Gabba as the England team management believed he was not fully prepared for the toil he would have to go through in the first Test as he was coming off a prolonged period away from the game. He has made his way back into the playing XI and England would be banking on him to repeat his last performance with the Pink ball in the 2017-18 Ashes series.