Dubai: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has upgraded the pitch rating of Indore’s Holkar Stadium — the venue for the third Test between India and Australia — to ‘below average’ from ‘poor’ following a BCCI appeal.
The ICC also gave the Narendra Modi Stadium pitch in Ahmedabad, the venue for the fourth Test, an ‘average’ rating for the slow batting deck where both teams had one completed innings each.
The match had ended in a tame draw, with India winning the series 2-1.
At Indore, Australia had defeated India by nine wickets inside three days of the Border-Gavaskar Test to secure a World Test Championship final berth.
The ICC appeal panel reviewed the earlier decision of the match referee Chris Broad and found that there was not enough excessive variable bounce to warrant the ‘poor’ rating.
The pitch, which had initially received three demerit points, will now get only one demerit point.
“The footage from the Test was reviewed by an ICC appeal panel consisting of Wasim Khan, ICC General Manager – Cricket, and Roger Harper, ICC Men’s Cricket Committee Member. Both were of the opinion that, while the guidelines had been followed by the Match Referee in accordance with Appendix A of the Pitch Monitoring Process, there was not enough excessive variable bounce to warrant the ‘poor’ rating,” said an ICC statement on Monday.
“The panel, therefore, concluded that the pitch should be rated ‘below average’, meaning the Holkar Stadium will receive only one demerit point instead of the original three.” Reacting to the news, Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association president Abhilash Khandekar told PTI: “I am happy that the rating has been changed. I think we have finally got some justice and members of our state unit are happy with the outcome.” The Holkar Stadium pitch offered a lot of help to the spinners, with 14 wickets falling on the first day and, out of the 31 wickets to fall in the Test, 26 were picked up by spinners.
At Ahmedabad, Usman Khawaja and Cameron Green scored centuries for Australia in the Test, while for India, Virat Kohli and young Shubman Gill hit tons.
The ICC match referee however gave ‘very good’ rating to the the Wankhede Stadium and Dr. YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricke
