Former Australian cricketer Mark Taylor has slammed the Indore pitch as one of the worst pitches to play cricket. The pitch started to spin from the first session of Day 1 and had a low bounce throughout the match which kept batsmen out of scoring runs. Both were not able to cross 200 runs in a single inning and the match was completed within three days.
The Indore Pitch was rated “poor” by ICC Referee and it received three demerits points from the ICC. Earlier in the series, Nagpur and Delhi pitches too received “average” ratings from ICC.
Speaking about the rating as quoted by The Age Former Australia skipper Mark Taylor agreed with the ratings: “I agree with that, I think the pitches have been poor for the series, to be honest, and the Indore one was the worst of the three”.
Mark Taylor stressed that the pitch should not behave in such a manner on day 1, and added that the Indore pitch started to act like a day 4 or day 5 on the first day itself.
“I don’t believe a pitch should be going through the top on day one. You might understand that day four or five if the game goes that long, but not day one, that’s just poor preparation. I thought Indore was a very poor pitch and should have been ranked accordingly.”
Match referee Chris Broad said that the pitch was very dry and the Indore pitch does not provide a balance between bat and ball.
The Game A Bit More Of A Lottery – Mark Taylor
The pitch has also attracted severe criticism not only from the Australian cricket fraternity but also from the Indian one. Taylor reckoned that this pitch was so poorly prepared, which made the game look like the lottery, which didn’t go in India’s favour.
“So I don’t think there was any skulduggery going on at the Gabba. I think with Indore, I hope I can say the same thing there, but what happened there, the pitch was so poorly prepared it made the game a bit more of a lottery, which didn’t favour India at all.”
Earlier, an Indian legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar asked how many demerit points did ICC provide for the Gabba pitch which hosted Australia and South Africa match which was completed within two days. The Brisbane pitch was given a below-average rating with just one demerit point whereas Indore Pitch received three demerit points.