Mitchell Starc king of the pink ball again

The Australian pace ace collected his second-best Test figures on Sunday, taking 6-66 in Pakistan's first innings of the Adelaide Oval encounter.

Starc added another second innings scalp, taking his overall haul with pink balls in day-night Test matches to 33 wickets - nine more than any other bowler in the world.

"I still think it (the pink ball) is probably more like a white ball than a red ball, so it's probably playing in my favour there," Starc said.

"It still went soft for us on that wicket. We saw through the early afternoon session today where it didn't move around much at all and the wicket was quite flat.

"So when it's going through those stages, (it's) trying to control the scoreboard and we did that really well at times."

Starc now has taken five or more wickets in a Test innings a dozen times and he narrowly missed a hat-trick against the tourists on Sunday.

He claimed his fifth wicket when he had Babar Azam edging behind for 97, before trapping Shaheen Shah Afridi lbw for a golden duck.

Starc's hat-trick ball caught the leading edge of Mohammad Abbas' bat but it flew away safely.

The left-armer has also taken the most first-class wickets by an Australian in day-night matches, with his tally now at 58.

Starc's bowling will be well overshadowed by David Warner's record-breaking 335 not out in Adelaide, but his form turnaround is almost equally as impressive.

Starc was beaten from pillar to post as he lost his rhythm last summer, only coming good for the final Test against a lacklustre Sri Lanka in Canberra.

He then only got one chance in the Ashes, a shock omission for all bar the Manchester Test, and and was dropped for the last at The Oval.

But following a strong start to the Sheffield Shield season for NSW, Starc has shown he is back to his best against Pakistan, his second Test heroics following seven wickets across two innings in the series-opener in Brisbane.

Australian Associated Press