Joe, you asked if we really need to play pink ball Tests in an Ashes, well, truth is I wish we didn't, but understand why we do

PL reluctantly admits that the day-night Test is better for cricket

It’s round and it’s pink, but is it cricket?

Joe Root, from Yorkshire, asks; Do we really need a day-night Test in an Ashes series?

You can see where he is coming from on this.

Stadiums fill themselves when the English are in town, and being English, this Australian invention could be seen as just another way of exploiting the home advantage.

It’s hard enough to win away these days without having to play a fabricated format patented and dominated by the hostile locals.

Few other countries play pink ball cricket. Australia has hosted 13 Tests in the twilight zone, England, where the days are longer, just one. Australia has hosted more day-night cricket than all other nations combined.

If you are a visitor, you look at the 12-1 win-loss ratio in the time since the first match against New Zealand in 2015. A game, if you recall, that the players were so reluctant to participate in that Cricket Australia essentially had to bribe them with a $1m “prize” which was split 60:40.

Australian bowlers, naturally, dominate stats around the format and if you’re reading them as an outsider, you’ve got to be a bit cynical.

Mitchell Starc, who just tore England a new one in Perth, is even more dangerous in the dark where his average drops from 29 to 17.

Starc was a reluctant participant in the early years of day-night cricket. Starc gave the earlier versions of the pink ball much the same rating Usman Khawaja did the Perth pitch.

Mike Atherton shares Root’s cynicism about day-night cricket, arguing on his Sky Sports Cricket podcast:

“The whole point was to play them in places where the crowds are struggling somewhere like, say Bridgetown where Test crowds have not been great, but it goes dark early, it’s warm and it’s obvious you can play and get people in after work. This Ashes Test at the Gabba would be sold out anyway and the notion that they are going to play that 150th Test anniversary Test [between Australia and England] in 2027 under lights is a complete nonsense.”

Every ounce of my being wants to agree with Root and Atherton. I agree with the latter about the 150th Test, celebrating 150 years of traditional Test cricket with a pink ball is bullshit, that said, as much as I want to, I can’t agree with him, or Root, about the presence of a pink ball Test in an ordinary summer, Ashes or not.

There’s so much to dislike about a pink ball Test, and the very first thing is that ball. While not as bad as it was, it is still inferior to the red variety. Tradition, too, is important.

The second thing is the artificial jeopardy introduced by playing in the twilight zone.

Bowlers and batters will tell you the game changes dramatically when the sun begins to set. The impact is so dramatic, sides will do their best to avoid being caught in their batting innings in the evening. In Adelaide that’s the third session, but in Brisbane, where the days are shorter, the shift happens in the second. Teams batting first have a significantly greater advantage than teams batting first in red ball cricket (62% compared to 49%).