The International Cricket Council (ICC) has rated the Indore pitch used for the third India-Australia Test match as poor. The fixture lasted a little over two days with a total of 31 wickets falling in the match. 26 of the 31 wickets fell to spinners on a track where there was assistance for them right from the first session of Day 1. Notably, this was the third Test match on the trot in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy which finished inside three days.
While the hosts had used spinning wickets even in the first two Test matches to register emphatic wins in both the Tests, this time around the plan backfired as the hosts had to taste their own bitter medicine, losing the match by 9 wickets having managed 109 and 163 runs in the first and second innings respectively.
Australia's off-spinner Nathan Lyon picked 11 wickets in the contest and was the Player Of the Match, picking 8 wickets in India's second innings to provide their batters a target of only 76 runs in the fourth innings.
“The pitch, which was very dry, did not provide a balance between bat and ball, favouring spinners from the start," Chris Broad, the match referee noted as per the ICC report.
"The fifth ball of the match broke through the pitch surface and continued to occasionally break the surface providing little or no seam movement and there was excessive and uneven bounce throughout the match,” he outlined.
Indore's Holkar Stadium has also received three demerit points after the match referee's assessment of the wicket. Meanwhile, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will now have a period of 14 days in which they can appeal against the world cricket governing body's assessment.
Recently, the ICC had also rated the pitch used for the Rawalpindi Test match as "below average" but upon appeal from the Pakistan Cricket Board, they withdrew the demerit points awarded to the international cricket venue.