Adelaide: An officiating error involving bat-detection technology has overshadowed Alex Carey’s significant performance on the opening day of the third Ashes Test. It was confirmed that Australia’s wicketkeeper-batter should have been dismissed following an England review.
Carey played a crucial role in lifting Australia to 326 for eight in Adelaide, scoring his first Ashes century. His knock almost ended prematurely when England appealed for a catch from Josh Tongue’s bowling. On-field umpire Ahsan Raza turned down the appeal, prompting an immediate review from the England side.
Broadcast replays indicated an audible noise as the ball passed the bat, accompanied by a visible spike on the Snicko system used to assess edges. However, these elements did not align, as the noise was registered before the visual spike. Consequently, third umpire Chris Gaffaney upheld the ‘not out’ decision, as he concluded that the spike occurred before the ball made contact with Carey’s bat. At the time of the review, Carey had scored 72 runs, later finishing his innings at 106.
After the day’s play, Carey expressed uncertainty about the delivery, suggesting he was not fully convinced of his innocence. “I thought there was a feather or some sort of noise when it passed the bat. If I was given out, I think I would have reviewed it, probably not confidently. It was a nice sound as it passed the bat,” Carey stated during the press conference.
Later clarification arrived on Wednesday when BBG Sports, the company responsible for Snicko, acknowledged the error. The firm stated that the audio feed had been mistakenly sourced from the bowler’s-end stump microphone, causing a misalignment of sound and vision during the review process. “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,” the company said.
Prior to this admission, England’s bowling coach David Saker expressed ongoing concerns about the reliability of the technology and did not rule out taking formal action. “I don’t think we’ve done anything about it so far but after today, maybe that might go a bit further. There have been concerns about it for the whole series. We shouldn’t be talking about this after a day’s play; it should just be better than that. It is what it is,” Saker remarked.
