South Africa skipper Dean Elgar has hit out at the Gabba wicket as being bad for the game, after the first Test was over inside two days.
Australia claimed a six-wicket victory over the Proteas on Sunday, after 34 wickets fell in the two days of play.
Balls frequently deviated off the very green-looking pitch throughout the two days, with the surface offering increasingly steepling bounce in the closing phases of the game.
Elgar, who scored just 5 runs across two innings, said that having the game finish so early was a bad look.
“You’ve gotta ask yourself the question, is that a good advertisement for our format?,” Elgar said.
“34 wickets in two days, pretty one-sided affair, I would say.”
It was the second-shortest Test by balls bowled ever to be played in Australia and one of just four to feature just two days of play.
“I’m obviously a purist of this format,” Elgar said.
“You want to see the game go four, five days, and just the way the nature of it, how it started to play, with some seriously steep bounce with the old ball, you’re kinda on a hiding to none as a batting unit.
“If you think about it only two batsman, maybe three batsman only applied themselves half decently and scored some decent runs.
“I don’t think it was a very good Test wicket, no.”
South Africa were bowled out for just 99 in their second innings, setting Australia a seemingly nominal 34 runs to win.
However, Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje combined to take four wickets as Australia limped over the line with 4-34.
Three short balls from Nortje extracted such bounce off the surface they flew up over the batter and wicketkeeper to be given as wides, prompting Elgar to approach the umpires to ask if the pitch was becoming dangerous.
“I did ask the umpires when Kagi [Rabada] got hit out down leg, I said, ‘how long does it go on for until it potentially is unsafe?’ and then Nortje was bowling his short ones that were flying over ours heads,” he said.
“I know the game was dead and buried, it was never to try and change or put a halt to the game, but that’s obviously where the umpires discretion comes in to play and not us as players.
“The game was as good as finished.
“I’m definitely not going to say it was unsafe or wasn’t safe.”
He said the umpires did not respond to his enquiry.
“There were only a handful of runs left so I think maybe they thought I was just trying to take the micky.”
It was not just South Africa who felt the pitch was unhelpful for the batters.
Scott Boland told ABC Sport that the number of wickets indicated that the pitch was “probably not” a fair one, while Steve Smith said it “wasn’t much fun” to bat on.
Australian captain Pat Cummins, who did not bat in the second innings, acknowledged that the pitch was “tricky”, but dismissed suggestions that it was dangerous.
“Two days probably isn’t ideal, obviously a lot of sideways movement today, a little bit of up and down bounce as well,” he said.
“Personally, I kinda don’t mind if the groundsmen err on the greener side occasionally.
“I’ve played a lot of Test matches where they’ve erred on the flatter side.
“I think it was the same for both teams.”
Cummins said there was “no way” the pitch could have been considered dangerous and that his counterpart was entitled to “try anything” as he was about to lose the match.
“It [the pitch] was fine. Sideways movement, there was a little bit of up and down bounce, but no, it was fine. No ball was jumping off a length or anything like that.”
The ICC will meet during the week to determine whether the Gabba pitch will be given a rating below average or poor, which will incur demerit points for the venue.