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England have mainly been the architects of their own downfall in Australia, but the revelation that the operator of the Real-Time Snicko technology messed up a caught-behind decision against Alex Carey at a crucial moment of the third Test is hard to stomach.
Carey had made 72 of his eventual 106 when he appeared for the all the world to under-edge Josh Tongue through to Jamie Smith – a wicket that would have reduced Australia to a below-par 245 for seven on a plumb batting strip.
But umpire Ahsan Raza rejected the appeal, and the TV official Chris Gaffaney felt unable to overrule him because the Snicko spike occurred before the visual images had caught up. In other words, it looked as if the noise had magically appeared from nowhere, before the ball had reached the bat.
Later, after Australia reached stumps more healthily placed on 326 for eight, Carey admitted he thought there was a ‘bit of a feather’, cheerfully adding: ‘Sometimes you have a bit of luck.’ Asked if he was a walker, he replied with a smile: ‘Clearly not.’
That forced BBG Sports, the Australian company who operate RTS, into an embarrassing confession: ‘Given that Alex Carey admitted he had hit the ball in question, the only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the Snicko operator at the time must have selected the incorrect stump mic for audio processing. In light of this, BBG Sports takes full responsibility for the error.’
It’s bad enough that the umpires didn’t have the nous to work out what had happened, especially as the controversial dismissal of Jamie Smith at Perth had shown that the technology used in Australia entails a two-frame gap between the pictures and the sound wave.
What noise could the Snicko spike have possibly been for? It was obvious the pictures were not aligned with the sound
Alex Carey’s reprieve cost England dear as he went from 72 to 106 and pushed Australia past 300
Josh Tongue’s appeal, had it been granted, would have left Australia 245 for seven and in danger of wasting a glorious batting pitch
After all, Australian cricketing legends Ricky Ponting and Matthew Hayden had no doubt in the commentary box that an injustice had occurred.
It’s embarrassing that a series of this magnitude, with the tourists copping it from every angle and careers on the line, should tolerate even the possibility of such inaccuracy, when the UltraEdge technology used in England is far more precise.
And it’s galling that Carey was able to laugh it off as just one of those things, when many in Australia still bang on about Stuart Broad failing to walk for an edge at Trent Bridge more than 12 years ago. While Broad was labelled a ‘s*** bloke’, you can be quite certain that Carey will continue to be hailed as a hero after scoring an emotional hundred on his home ground.
The Ashes deserve better than human error, though some furious England fans on X had darker theories. But, in a series of this importance, cock-up is almost as bad as conspiracy, and the apology from BBG Sports will come as little consolation to a team fighting for their reputations.
Cricket should be better than this, and it doesn’t make anyone a ‘whingeing Pom’ to say so.