Indore pitch changed to 'below average' from 'poor'

The International Cricket Council has upgraded its "poor" rating of the pitch used for the third Border Gavaskar Test in Indore.

Match referee Chris Broad had swiftly dished out the second lowest pitch rating for the Holkar Stadium surface earlier this month after Australia secured a nine-wicket victory little more than an hour into the third day of the match.

But following an appeal by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the ICC today announced the rating of the Indore surface had been changed from "poor" to "below average".

"Having reviewed footage of the Test match, the ICC appeal panel … deemed that there was not enough excessive variable bounce to warrant the poor rating," the ICC said in a statement.

It means the venue receives one demerit point rather than the three it had been allocated for the poor rating.

The ICC introduced a new rating system at the start of 2018 which sees venues receive demerit points for inadequate surfaces. An unfit rating sees a ground docked five demerit points, poor gets three and below average incurs one.

Any ground that accumulates five demerit points over a rolling five-year period will be banned from hosting any international matches for 12 months, while a venue that racks up 10 demerit points will have its right to stage Tests and limited-overs fixtures stripped for two years.

Pitches assessed as below average are deemed to have offered "either very little carry or bounce or more than occasional seam movement, or occasional variable (but not excessive or dangerous) bounce or occasional variable carry".

"If a pitch demonstrates these features, then the pitch cannot be rated in a higher category regardless of the amount of turn the pitch displays at any stage of the match," the ICC regulations state.

Following the match, Australia's stand-in skipper Steve Smith questioned whether the turn offered by the Indore surface had been "too extreme".

In his judgment, match referee Broad noted the pitch was "very dry" and favoured spinners from the start, with the fifth ball of the contest on day one breaking through the surface.

Australia have played in four Tests in the past 12 months that have seen pitches deemed unsatisfactory, with surfaces in Rawalpindi (against Pakistan in March last year), Galle (against Sri Lanka in July) and Brisbane (against South Africa in December) all deemed below average by the ICC.

It was a stark contrast a week later in Ahmedabad with the pitch failing to offer much assistance to all bowlers as the two sides played out a draw that saw India win the series 2-1.

India and Australia meet again at The Oval on June 7 in the World Test Championship final.

Border-Gavaskar Qantas Tour of India 2023

February 9-13: India won by an innings and 132 runs

February 17-21: India won by six wickets

March 1-5: Australia won by nine wickets

March 9-13: Match drawn 

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Matt Kuhnemann, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul (vc), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat, Ishan Kishan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Suryakumar Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat