The turning pitch dished out for the third Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test between India and Australia in Indore has become a major topic of discussion.

Opting to bat first, India’s first innings folded for a paltry 109 as Australia’s spin troika of Matthew Kuhnemann (5-16), Nathan Lyon (3-35) and Todd Murphy (1-23) ran through the home team’s batting line-up.

It was a listless batting display from India on a turning track at the Holkar Cricket Stadium. Virat Kohli was the top scorer with 22 while most of the batters failed to reach the double-digit mark.

In reply, Australia rode on Usman Khawaja’s 60 to reach 156/4 at the close of play on Day 1, with Peter Handscomb (7*) and Cameron Green (6*) unbeaten in the middle.

Speaking after the first day’s play, India batting coach Vikram Rathour said the hosts didn’t factor in excessive turn on offer as it was a bad day in office despite playing spin being one of its strengths.

“It is a challenging wicket for sure. More turn than what we expected. May be because of the moisture, the ball turned sharply in the morning. We could have made more runs for sure but I don’t think anyone played poor or rash cricket. We just had an off day as a batting unit,” Rathour said in a media interaction.

When asked about the risk of playing on turners, Rathour said they could be at the receiving end at times.

“Of course you can get out as a batting unit at times but we do prefer to play on turning tracks. That is our strength, that is where we are really good as a unit. To be fair this is a one off wicket.

“I don’t think the earlier two wickets were bad wickets. It is may be drier than we expected and we saw that. It did a lot more on first day of the Test match than what we expected.

“To be fair to curators. They hardly got time to prepare the wicket. They had a Ranji season here and it is pretty late it that was decide the game will be shifted from Dharamsala. They did not get enough time,” said the batting coach.

Australia took a handy lead of 47 runs at stumps on Day 1, and Rathour felt that the wicket might have eased as the day progressed.

“It felt like that (that wicket eased out). I won’t be able to comment on that. The guys playing the middle can tell you that better. It felt like it had gone slower later in the day. It wasn’t turning as sharply as it was in the morning.”

Asked, if the batters did deviate from their plans, Rathour replied in negative.

“Not really. The plan was to trust your defense and wait for the loose balls and score as many as runs you can. It was one of those days when everything you did went into the hands (of fielders). Basically we just had an off day,” he said.

Australia might have taken a lead but Rathour is not too worried considering the fact that they bat last on this pitch.

“Taking a lead is not as big a issue because they will need to bat number four on this surface. Now the challenge is to keep them to as low as possible. We will have to bat well in the second innings,” he concluded.

(With PTI Inputs)