Australia pacer Mitchell Starc cannot wait to play against India in the pink ball Test later this year when Virat Kohli’s men are scheduled to tour the country for a four-match series.

After Sourav Ganguly took over as the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India he made an impact on Indian cricket by organising the first ever day/night Test on Indian soil at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens. The match has been played against Bangladesh with the first ever pink ball in test cricket hosted in India.

India last toured Australia in 2018-19 and had refused their offer of playing a day-night Test then. However, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has said that the cricket boards of the two teams have agreed to play under the lights and a formal announcement will be made soon.

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“I think absolutely a pink ball Test in this series against India is a great thing,” Starc said during an online press conference on Tuesday. “The fans love it, it creates a different aspect of the contest. I think bat and ball are a lot closer together. India have obviously played a pink ball Test at home so they’re not completely foreign to it.”

“I guess in terms of the advantage if you like, we do have a good record at home with the pink ball. It’s no different to us going to India and they’ve got the advantage there,” he added.

With the world fighting coronavirus pandemic, cricket is also pondering measures to ensure safety of their players and stakeholders. One of the proposals is to temporarily ban the application of saliva to shine the ball as has been the practice.

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Starc insist to provide alternatives

However, Starc said the administrators have to provide an alternative.

“I understand that completely and hear what they’re saying in terms of a foreign substance, but whether that can be controlled by the umpires in terms of they have a portion of the wax and you can only use a small amount, I don’t know, but there needs to be a maintaining of the even contest,” Starc said.

“I understand what they’re saying with foreign substances and that it’s black and white in terms of that, but it’s an unusual time for the world and if they’re going to remove saliva shining for a portion of time they need to think of something else for that portion of time as well.”

The 30-year-old pained a grim picture in the scenario that bowlers aren’t given permission to use alternative methods to purchase swing.

“They’ve mentioned that it’s only going to be there for a period of time and then once the world gets back to a relatively normal situation then saliva can come back into shining the ball. But if it’s going to be a window of time there, maybe then instruct people to leave more grass on the wickets to have that contest or if they’re going to take away a portion of maintaining the ball, there needs to be that even contest between bat and ball, otherwise people are going to stop watching, and kids aren’t going to want to be bowlers,” he said.