Cricket: Warne backing day-night test

New Zealand and Australia face off in the first day-night test. Photo / Getty

Having put the boot in Australian sporting icon, the Kookaburra test ball, one day Shane Warne has endorsed the inaugural day-night pink ball test the next.

The world's greatest legspinner said the game needs sparking up.

"Pink ball, a bit of grass on the wicket, it will be a ripper," Warne said yesterday of the Australia-New Zealand clash at Adelaide Oval starting today.

"If the pink ball can do something, be exciting, different, I am all for it."

The bowler who took 708 test wickets, second top of all time, believes test cricket must come up with innovations to stay relevant.

"We all love test cricket and want it to stay but if it doesn't come up with different things to make it more interesting it won't stay," said Warne.

Crowds of about 40-45,000 are expected for Adelaide Oval on the first three days of the series-deciding test, with Australia holding a 1-0 lead.

The test game is bereft of fans in several parts of the globe, notably the Caribbean and sub-continent, South Africa and New Zealand.

So changes are being made to try and arrest the decline and have the turnstiles spinning inwards rather than out.

"When people say a great pitch is flat that is wrong," said Warne.

"No one wants to see a road and 500 v 500 runs. The world wants to see a fast bowler come in and whiz a few past the head and bat. The batsman should struggle a bit but get runs once set."

Warne, 46, is looking for interesting tactics from rival captains Steve Smith and Brendon McCullum - "a very aggressive captain" - with the test being played in unfamiliar circumstances.

''You need a contest between bat and ball and if this pink ball makes it exciting for us, we will all love it."