Do the pink-ball matches offer the tourists their best chance of a win over Australia? Previous results suggest otherwise
It is curious how an idea can become accepted as a general truth. For months leading up to this Ashes series, one of the tenets largely accepted by punditry has been that the Adelaide day-night Test would be England’s best chance of getting into the series with a win. When the fifth Test at Perth was moved to Hobart, the framing became whether this second day-night match – without having seen the first – would tilt things even more in England’s favour.
The concept is that the pink ball and the evening conditions can offer more chance of making the ball swing and seam and that England have bowlers skilled at making use of that. None of this is untrue. It also doesn’t at all factor in that England have played day-night matches four times, beating only a bewildered West Indies in an Arctic version of Birmingham before being pummelled in Adelaide, Auckland and Ahmedabad.
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