Carey ready to rise to unique pink ball challenges

For all the folklore surrounding the pink ball and its mystical capacity to swing and seam around when floodlights are blazing, Alex Carey sees a much more pragmatic truth.

As a wicketkeeper whose job it is to catch the thing every time it sneaks past the bat or is hurled in by a fielder, Carey admits that seeing the pink version is a marginally trickier assignment than dealing with its red or white equivalents.

Carey's not sure if it's a quirk of his vision or a broader effect of the heavily lacquered ball used in day-night first-class games, but he finds it tends to "flicker" when under artificial illumination and regardless of its overall condition.

In his words, the pink ball appears and then fleetingly disappears along its path as if watching a stick figure come to life by flicking not-so-quickly through a stack of pages to produce a jumpy animation.

"At times, when the lights come on and the (ambient) light does change, it can be a little bit of depth perception," Carey said on Tuesday.

"Behind the stumps it can just look like a bit of a glow rather than see the seam.

"So it's making sure you watch the ball as close as possible.

"I'm not sure what it looks like from the side, but at times it can be hard to pick up.

"But it's part of the game, I think the pink ball is a fantastic opportunity.

"Under lights, something different and Adelaide does it really well."

If the 33-year-old does find keeping to the pink ball a sterner challenge, it's one that he's unequivocally risen to.

From his four day-night Tests to date – two of them on his home track at Adelaide Oval with one each in Hobart and Brisbane – he has snared 21 dismissals (20 catches and a stumping).

The only keeper who has proved more productive in day-night Tests is his immediate Australia predecessor, Tim Paine, whose 29 dismissals (28 catches, 1 stumping) were accumulated across five matches.

It was in the 2022-23 pink ball Test in Adelaide that Carey claimed six catches in the second innings against West Indies, a record for a keeper in a single innings of a day-night Test match.

That haul also installed him alongside fellow glovemen Wally Grout, Rod Marsh, Ian Healy and Brad Haddin as the only Australia keepers to effect six dismissals in a solitary innings, with those other benchmarks all set in red-ball fixtures.

It's therefore easy to understand why Carey is a fan of the pink-ball format despite its incumbent challenges.

However, his all-round Test keeping record, whether to red ball or pink, also sees him stack up alongside the most successful keepers Australia have fielded across almost 150 years.

His current record of 139 dismissals (126 catches and 13 stumpings) from 33 Test appearances means he's the third-fastest to claim that many victims from so few games.

Only South Africa's Quinton de Kock (who reached 139 dismissals in his 30th Test) and Paine (in his 31st) have bettered that rate of return among all keepers.

And should he complete a further 11 dismissals while also scoring an additional 104 runs across in the second NRMA Insurance Test in Adelaide and the subsequent third at the Gabba later this month, he will claim a significant record in his own right.

Carey would then become the fastest Australia Test wicketkeeper to complete the double of 150 dismissals and 1500 runs, by doing so in fewer appearances than Paine (35) and the player considered the perennial keeper-batter yardstick Adam Gilchrist (36).

Only de Kock can claim to have bettered those returns, having reached the quinella in his 32nd outing.

Despite his prowess behind the stumps, Carey is aware he inevitably cops greater scrutiny for his performances in front of them with bat in hand.

For that reason, he concedes he has room for improvement on his returns from the opening Test in Perth where, in addition to his five catches and a stumping, he produced scores of 21 and 36 (second and third-highest scores of those respective innings).

But he was bemused by the reaction to Australia's 295-run loss in the first Test and some of the accompanying commentary that suggested the reigning world Test champions had become 'too quiet and too nice'.

"It's quite a big reaction externally to one Test loss," Carey said.

"Internally we don't feel that.

"We didn't play the way we would have liked to have played, but we know over four, five Test matches if we keep rocking up and playing our style, we'll have success."

Australia's squad trained for several hours at Adelaide Oval this afternoon, with allrounder Mitchell Marsh batting alongside his fellow top-order teammates with the only fleeting moment of concern the blow to the right thumb Steve Smith copped when facing Marnus Labuschagne's throwdowns.

The bowlers undertook a light workload with tomorrow's session under floodlights to be the team's main pre-Test training run where they are expected to be put through their paces.

But as for suggestions he should exert a more verbal presence behind the stumps in line with some of his more vocal predecessors, Carey's response was typically measured.

"That's the way I am, (I've) always played that way," he said.

"We've had great success with the way that I've kept.

"This group knows what's important for us and we respect other people's opinions – we don't have to listen to them, but we respect them.

"We're a calm group, though at times it might look different to calmness."

The question that did momentarily flummox the usually unflappable keeper during his 15-minute media conference at Adelaide Oval on Tuesday related to how he is perceived by fans.

A visiting India journalist cited the example of previous Australia keepers such as Marsh, Healy and Gilchrist who bestrode the world stage and quizzed Carey on whether he felt he garnered similar sentiments among the game's supporters.

"I don't think I'm loved in England," Carey said, referring to his now famous stumping of Jonny Bairstow during the 2023 Ashes campaign that provoked uproar at Lord's.

"Here in Australia I had a few pats on the back when I came home, so I think I'm more loved here.

"But I can't answer that.

"I try to go out there and play the best cricket I can play.

"I love playing for my country so hopefully you see a smile on my face because it means a lot to all us players."

NRMA Insurance Men's Test Series v India

First Test: India won by 295 runs

Second Test: December 6-10: Adelaide Oval, 3pm AEDT (D/N)

Third Test: December 14-18: The Gabba, Brisbane, 11.20am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10.30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 3-7: SCG, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT

Australia squad (for second Test): Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal