Australia v India Prediction: Head and Starc are the pink ball specialists

Australia host India on Friday morning live on TNT Sports 3 with a start time of 04:00 at Adelaide under lights, looking to bounce back from that First Test loss.     

Jamie Pacheco has crunched the numbers to find out which Australian batsman and bowler are the stand-out picks with excellent records with the pink ball and will talk you through it all in his Australia vs India Predictions...

*You can check out all of the Cricket Odds on offer from us on this match and in general over on betfred.com

Australia  

One of the poorest performances you're likely to see from an Australian Test side in a long time, at least on home soil, resulted in a hefty defeat in the First Test.  

Only one batsman - Travis Head - passed fifty for them in the whole match. Mitch Starc top-scored with 26 in the first innings from number nine, a good indication of their struggles.  

Marnus Labuschagne's form is becoming a real concern, part of the problem being his ultra-conservative approach to batting and poor strike rate means he's putting himself under pressure.  Sooner or later, a delivery will have his name on it on these pitches and it's very different being on 50 off 100 balls when that happens or being 8 off 100 balls when it does. But he should keep his place for the time being, especially given there aren't currently too many alternatives.  

Mitch Marsh pulled up sore but is expected to play, though we'll have to see how much he'll bowl. They'll have to make do without Josh Hazlewood, their best bowler in the First Test, however. He's carrying a niggle and will be replaced by the like-for-like Scott Boland.  

Possible XI:  McSweeney, Khawaja, Labuschagne, Smith, Head, Marsh, Carey, Starc, Cummins, Lyon, Boland. 

India  

What a difference a month makes. India bounced back from that humiliating 3-0 loss to New Zealand by putting in a superb performance to win in Perth.  

Stand-in skipper Jasprit Bumrah was his usual brilliant self with eight wickets in the match, Nitish Kumar Reddy had a solid debut with runs and a couple of wickets, while Virat Kohli and Yashasvi Jaiswal hit second-innings centuries.  

And all this after the eye-catching decision to play Washington Sundar ahead of both Ravi Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja as their spinner. He had an ok game with a patient 29 in the second innings to go with two wickets to help wrap up the game but it's anyone's guess as to which of the three will play in this one.  

Rohit Sharma returns after missing the First Test to attend the birth of his child and it's been suggested he'll slot into the middle order rather than opening, presumably with Devdutt Padikkal making way.  

Possible XI: Rahul, Jaiswal, Kohli, Sharma, Pant, Jurel, Ashwin/Sundar/Jadeja, Reddy, Rana, Bumrah, Siraj.  

Pitch and conditions  

We're under lights for this one at the Adelaide Oval.  

It will be only the second match India have played with the pink ball, the only other one being in December 2020, a match Australia won easily. It was played here at Adelaide.  

Australia have an outstanding record in day-night Tests with 11 wins from 12, their only defeat coming at the Gabba against the West Indies earlier this year.  

The consensus is that the pink ball moves under lights a lot more than a red ball does when the lights aren't on. The proof is in the pudding given none of the 22 pink-ball Tests played around the world ended in draws; two of them finished before the Second Day was up.  

Key to winning a pink-ball Test is batting first and Australia can thank their lucky stars that the toss has often gone their way. In seven times they batted first after winning the toss, they won the lot.  

In seven of the day-night Tests where they batted first at Adelaide, they passed 300 in the first innings in five of them; so, if they do get first use of the wicket, they may score heavily.  

Australia vs India Second Test Odds

Australia are 4/5, implied probability of 55.6%; India are 6/5, implied probability of 45.5%. The draw at 9/1 (10%) can be considered something of an irrelevance given that as we know, there's never been one in 22 Tests under lights.  

If long-term stats were our main concern, the hosts would be a no-brainer given they're 11/12 in pink ball matches while India have only played in these conditions once, and lost, right here in Adelaide.  

But we have to look beyond that and consider that they have a highly inexperienced player in McSweeney at the top of the order, a badly out of form one in Labuschagne and are missing Hazlewood, who has a good record of 37 wickets at 18.86 with the pink ball.   

If one side was considerably bigger than the other, we'd go with them but with the odds so tight, we'll leave the main market alone.  

Australia First Innings Top Batsman   

Labuschagne (4/1) will be glad to be playing here with the far later start. No-one has scored more runs in day-night Tests in Australia than him with 894 at an average of 63.85, including four centuries.   

But he really did look all at sea in that First Test and with so much on his mind (so much more than usual!) including his place in the team being at risk, we'll swerve him.  

Instead, we like Travis Head at the same 4/1. His record in these conditions is very strong too with 12 innings producing two centuries and three fifties at an average of 49. Only Labuschagne has more centuries and a higher average of anyone who has played more than four innings against this type of ball Down Under.  

Unlike Labuschagne, he got some runs in the First Test and unlike Labuschagne he never seems to get flustered or be out of form, so we'll go with the second of the course specialists at a very decent price.