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Former opener Matthew Hayden has classified Mitchell Starc as a 'pink ball magician' while India's assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate decoded what makes the Australian left-armer so good in the day-night Test.
Starc was a force to be reckoned with on the opening day of the second Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Adelaide. He swung the ball back into Indian batters while holding onto his dangerous line and lengths to take a six-wicket haul. Yashasvi Jaiswal's dismissal on the first ball of the opening day and a peach of delivery to remove Ravichandran Ashwin were arguably some of his best works in Test format. Hayden was left "surprised" with the way the seasoned gun moved the pink ball so aggressively even in the 40th over. "He has that scrambled seam delivery that goes across the right-hander, but when he does have that ability--which he did--I must admit I was a little surprised. I've never really seen the pink ball swing into the sort of 40th over and so aggressively swing as well. By that stage, he used a really important word, and it's a bit of an underrated word as well, and that's 'momentum.' It was all in favour of India," Hayden told Star Sports. "A difficult position to come back from in life and sport is those opportunities to wrestle back momentum, and Mitchell Starc did that in only the way he can--when the lights are like the way they are and with that beautiful-coloured ball in his hand. He's just a magician with the Pink Ball," he added. At the end of the day's play, ten Doeschate picked Ashwin's dismissal as the best example of why Starc is so good with the pink ball. "I think Ash's dismissal was an example of why he's so good with the pink ball. Australia set us up nicely. When the ball swings back to a certain degree or a lesser degree, the batters can generally figure it out, but when they're guessing on both sides, it makes them far more effective," ten Doeschate said at the end of day's play press conference. "Just the areas bowled today were superb, and obviously, he takes a lot of confidence from the pink ball, having done well in the past. And he's probably the main exponent of swing bowling out of the two teams," he added. (ANI)
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