England bowling coach David Saker has flagged the possibility of the Poms lodging an official complaint to the ICC in the wake of Alex Carey‘s controversial let-off in the third Ashes Test. Carey made 106 as Australia went to stumps at 8-326 on day one in Adelaide.
But the wicket-keeper was on 72 when England thought they had him caught behind. The on-field umpire didn’t raise the finger, which led England captain Ben Stokes to call for a review.
England are considering making an official complaint after Alex Carey’s controversial DRS reprieve led to his century. Image: Getty
The ‘Snicko’ technology registered a spike, but bizarrely it came well before the ball passed the bat and therefore Carey survived. The Aussie star admitted after play he thought he might have got a ‘feather’ on the ball, indicating he probably knew he hit it.
And the situation took an extraordinary twist on Wednesday night when the operator of the Snicko technology released a stunning statement that human error might have saved Carey. The technology’s operators BBG conceded an operator error was most likely, suggesting the person using Snicko might have been looking at the stumps at the wrong end.
“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,” BBG founder Warren Brennan said in a statement. “In light of this, BBG Sports takes full responsibility for the error.”
Brennan seemed to suggest the Snicko operator turned up the mic on the stumps at the non-striker’s end, rather than the stumps closest to Carey at the striker’s end. But cricket fans have been quick to point out that if that was the case, the spike would have come after the ball passed the bat instead of before.
The spike appeared well before the ball passed the bat. Image: Channel 7
Alex Carey admits he probably hit it
Carey admitted in his post-play press conference: “I thought there was a bit of a feather or some sort of noise when it passed the bat. It looked a bit funny on the replay, didn’t it, with the noise coming early.
“If I was given out, I think I would have reviewed it, probably not confidently, though. It was a nice sound as it passed the bat. Snicko obviously didn’t line up, did it? It’s just the way cricket goes sometimes, isn’t it, you have a bit of luck and maybe it went my way today.”
When asked if he’s a ‘walker’ – someone who walks off when they know they’re out rather than wait for the umpire’s decision – Carey responded: “Clearly not”.
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England considering making official complaint to ICC
Speaking in his own press conference, Saker flagged the possibility of England taking the matter further. “I don’t think we’ve done anything about it so far, but I’d say maybe that might change,” the Aussie revealed.
“There’s been concerns about it for the whole series. We shouldn’t be talking about that after a day of play, it should just be better than that.
“I think the calibration of Snicko (has been) out quite a bit and that’s been probably the case for the series. There’s been some things that don’t really measure up.
“And at that stage, I can’t remember the exact score, but it was a pretty important decision. So those things hurt but we’ll get through it. But you’d think in this day and age, you would think the technology is good enough to pick things up like that.”
England were fuming in the first Test when Jamie Smith was given out on review when a spike appeared on Snicko one frame after the ball had passed the bat. On that occasion it was given out because Snicko often shows a spike one frame later than when ball and bat are together.