The start of something big

For the benefit of sports historians, social anthropologists and the pathologically curious that might follow, let history record the following.

The first delivery in day-night Test cricket was bowled at 2pm on a temperate Friday afternoon in Adelaide by Mitchell Starc to Martin Guptill, who dead-batted it to extra cover. 

WATCH: Starc forced from field

The opening run was posted four minutes later when Guptill knocked a single backward of point, with the same batsman becoming the first pink ball wicket 15 minutes into the match when he pushed his bat unsuccessfully towards a Josh Hazlewood delivery angled in towards the stumps. 

WATCH: Hazlewood's historic first wicket

Not surprisingly, Kane Williamson scored the first boundary thanks to a generous leg stump full toss from Starc, and Ross Taylor survived the inaugural day-night Test DRS review against Peter Siddle. 

Who in turn became the first bowler to reach 200 Test wickets using a pink ball when he nicked off Taylor and outfoxed Doug Bracewell. 

Quick Single: Countless firsts marks historic day

In between those events, the Black Caps endured the first middle-order collapse in the unprecedented format in losing 3-4 in less than two overs, the height of which saw Brendon McCullum become the first skipper to throw away a day-night Test innings with a wild heave. 

That was after opener Tom Latham became the first (and to date, only) player to score a half century against the pink ball at international level, and immediately fell victim to the best pink ball catch taken in Tests when 'keeper Peter Nevill clutched a chance in the very tips of his be-gloved fingers. 

WATCH: Latham, Taylor, McCullum fall in quick succession

The Black Caps' 23-year-old spinner Mitchell Santner, the first player to make his Test debut in a day-night fixture, also became the first to be treated to a verbal send-off by an opposition bowler with the same Christian name in said format after Starc gave him a blast upon rattling his stumps.

WATCH: Starc gives Santner a welcome to Test cricket

Shortly before Starc himself became the first fast bowler to retire from the field injured during the dinner break in a Test (the 40-minute adjournment that now falls between tea and stumps), and soon after found himself on his way to hospital for scans on his bone spur-afflicted right ankle.

Quick Single: Starc limps off in Adelaide 

In the interests of academic integrity, Steve Smith can be listed as the first bowler to have rolled over his arm under floodlights in a Test match, having granted himself a couple of overs as the light towers started humming in the five minutes prior to the first Test dinner to fall within a match.

But those purists who had not flicked over to the 7pm news will surely concur the man to be recognised as beginning the historic post-dinner session under lights and a setting sun was Siddle, with the Black Caps’ keeper BJ Watling showing no difficulty in seeing or negotiating his history making delivery at the other end.

When Watling became the first victim to a smartly-held catch in the slips cordon, Tim Southee then claimed his moment in the spotlights by belting a pink ball into the crowd for the first time in a Test match (where the first crowd catch was spectacularly plucked by one of the 47,441 in the house).

WATCH: Southee's six leads to great grab

The NZ opening bowler then doubled up in the history book by becoming the first batsman to be handed a life, with Adam Voges’ failed attempt to scamper back and clutch a swirling fly ball owing more to the difficulty of the task than the job of sighting the pink ball against the pale-lit evening sky.

And even though NZ's 202 all out just 42 minutes into the night session was their lowest first innings Test total at the Adelaide Oval, it currently stands as the highest by a team in a day-night Test with Australia ending the evening 2-54, still 148 runs in deficit.

That score line included the loss of David Warner, dismissed for a single-figure score for the first time since that two hours of horror at the hands of England at Trent Bridge last August.

Which was also the last time Australia's top-order batters had encountered conditions that enabled swing bowlers to generate such movement.

Indeed, any movement.

And Joe Burns incurred the inaugural self-inflicted wound when – after a studious 14 from 41 pink deliveries faced – he pushed an angled bat and the resultant inside edge dislodged the never-before-seen navy blue bails.

Which will interest those scholars with a view to the interpretive rather than the narrative.

Because it will come after all those months of scrutiny of the pink ball’s durability, which outwardly appeared vastly superior to recent incarnations of the red.

It will follow in the wake of the all those divergent views on how easily it could be detected or otherwise against the sky and the crowd and the grass.

And it will weigh up the significant visual evidence that it swings far more pronouncedly and for longer under the fall of night than the glare of day.

And after a day of day-night cricket, it will show that it wasn't the ball at all to emerge as the point of difference between the one-sided run gluts staged in Brisbane and Perth, and the bowlers’ revenge gained today.

Quick Single: New ball swings balance against bats

Rather it was the additional coating of grass on the pitch, admittedly installed as a cushion on which the pink ball could glide lest it lose its lustre too early in its Test match life, that restored a long lost equilibrium between bat and ball.

Not only did it allow Hazlewood to extract some seam movement previously thought to have gone the way of the moa, it offered grip for Nathan Lyon’s spin – unheard of in the days when he was helping to tend Test pitches in his one-time home town.

It provided Starc with sufficient swing to loom as Australia’s trump once again, until hobbled by injury.

It enabled bowlers to build pressure by landing the ball in places that posed questions of batsmen who, as was the case for Williamson in his 83-minute innings, and Latham and Taylor and McCullum in the over he lasted, ultimately lost the battle of patience and concentration and created wicket-taking opportunities.

Where previously few had fallen across days of Test cricket that offered little in the way of variety, not just in the colour of the ball and hour of the day.

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The fans voted with their feet as day one attracted a crowd of 47,441 spectators // Getty Images

Apart from a few pronounced outswingers from Southee and Trent Boult in the final testing hour that Smith and Voges survived – and they came as no surprise to anyone who had seen the NZ pair bend the Duke red ball in England earlier this year – the pink ball did nothing extraordinary.

But the conditions created to usher it in, the unique ambience the event generated and the element of curiosity it brought to an otherwise predictable summer meant there were many who left Adelaide Oval at 9.30pm tonight knowing they had seen the first of many day-nights of Test cricket to come.

WATCH: The first pink-ball delivery in day-night Test cricket

Day-Night Test trivia

First ball: Mitchell Starc. An anticlimactic full delivery that was defended by Martin Guptill

First wicket: Josh Hazlewood. A fine ball that nipped off the deck and trapped Guptill lbw

First catch: Peter Nevill. Was up to the stumps and the ball somehow stuck in the webbing of the outstretched keeper's gloves

First dropped catch: Adam Voges. Ran a long way from first slip but was camped under the ball when it somehow slipped out of his hands

First boundary: Kane Williamson. Flicked a full toss from Starc away to the leg-side fence

First six: Tim Southee. Cleared the rope easily when he pulled a short ball from Hazlewood

First half-century: Tom Latham. Cut a short ball outside off stump from Nathan Lyon.

Teams

Australia: Joe Burns, David Warner, Steve Smith (c), Adam Voges, Shaun Marsh, Mitch Marsh, Peter Nevill (wk), Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon. James Pattinson (12th). 

New Zealand: Martin Guptill, Tom Latham, Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Brendon McCullum (c), Mitchell Santner, BJ Watling (wk), Doug Bracewell, Mark Craig, Tim Southee, Trent Boult. Luke Ronchi (12th).