Brendon McCullum lodged a complaint with the ICC match referee Jeff Crowe overnight following the Snicko malfunction that saw Alex Carey handed a lifeline during day one century in the third Ashes Test.
Carey, who made 106 in Australia’s 326 for eight by stumps, was on 72 when Josh Tongue believed the left-hander had edged behind. He was given not out on the field and the third umpire, Chris Gaffaney, felt he did not have enough evidence to overturn the decision despite a spike showing up on the review.
The issue in this instance was that the spike came before any possible contact on the replay, whereas similar occurrences earlier in the series have seen it come afterwards and are factored into the umpiring protocols.
With Carey later admitting he thought he had hit the ball – he said he would have reviewed in hope had it been given out on the field – BBG, the company that owns Snicko, owned up to the mistake, which came with Australia on 245 for six.
In a statement to BBC Sport, BBG said: “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.”
The technology uses audio from the stump microphones and in this instance it is believed the feed from the one at the non-striker’s end may have been used in error.
Crowe has since reinstated one of England’s reviews after McCullum, their head coach, and Wayne Bentley, the team manager, met with him after the close. The ICC is also set to investigate the issue further.
Speaking after stumps, the England bowling consultant, David Saker, said: “The boys were pretty confident he hit it. I think the calibration of the Snicko is out quite a bit and that has probably been the case for the series. There’s been some things that don’t really measure up.
“At that stage it was a pretty important decision. Those things hurt, but you get through it. In this day and age you’d think the technology is good enough to pick things up like that. There have been concerns all series. We shouldn’t be talking about this after a day’s play, it should be better than that.”
While technology is mandatory in the World Test Championship, the Real Time Snicko product used by Fox Sports, the host broadcaster in Australia, is considered inferior to the Ultra-Edge system used by Sky Sports in England.
Carey said: “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? That’s just the way cricket goes sometimes. You have a bit of luck, and maybe it went my way today.”
