Former Australia skipper Mark Taylor is not happy with the pitches served for the three Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 Tests between India and Australia.

The surfaces for the first two Tests in Nagpur and Delhi drew criticism but the one for the third Test Indore copped the most flak. The ball was turning viciously in the first half hour and uneven bounce made the job tougher for the batters. As it turned out, the Indore Test got over in just two days and a session with Australia defeating India by nine wickets.

While pitches in Nagpur and Delhi were rated “average” by the ICC, the track for the third Test received “poor” rating.

“I agree with that,” Taylor said of the ICC rating the Indore pitch as poor. “I definitely think the pitches have been poor for the series, to be totally honest, and obviously the Indore one was the worst of the three. I don’t believe a pitch should be going through the top on day one,” he was quoted as saying by Sydney Morning Herald.

“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,” the former opener said.

Meanwhile, India batting Sunil Gavaskar has lashed out at the ICC for awarding three demerit points to the Indore pitch, citing that he would like to know how many demerit points were given to the Gabba pitch, where Australia defeated South Africa in December 2022.

However, Taylor believes that the Brisbane pitch was equal for both sides, unlike the surfaces for the first three Tests of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

“I think they’ve got to keep an eye on that sort of stuff because people look at the Gabba this season. The groundsman there just got it wrong,” the former Australian captain said.

“He left too much grass on it but, in a way, it didn’t favour either side. It would have favoured the South African seamers just as much (as Australia) because they’ve got four very good seamers.

“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 actually made the game a bit more of a lottery, which didn’t favour India at all,” Taylor said.

“It probably brought Australia’s spin bowlers into the game a lot more than they (India) thought it was going to.”

(With PTI Inputs)