Alex Carey’s century at Adelaide Oval came with a slice of good fortune, and England are weighing up whether to take the matter further with match referee Jeff Crowe after a disputed Snickometer call went the batter’s way late on the opening day.
Carey was on 72 in the 63rd over when Josh Tongue found his outside edge – or appeared to. Jamie Smith and the cordon went up in unison, umpire Ahsan Raza said not out, and Ben Stokes signalled for a review almost before the appeal had died.
Real-Time Snickometer (RTS), the audio-visual edge-detection tool used in Australia, showed a clear spike. The issue? It flashed three or four frames before the ball passed the bat. TV umpire Chris Gaffaney concluded the spike was “before the bat” and that the delivery had “gone well under”. Not out stood, Carey stayed, and 34 more runs followed on his way to 106.
After play the left-hander sounded honest enough. “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, yeah,” he said. Asked if he would ever walk, Carey smiled: “I’m clearly not. Snicko obviously didn’t line up, did it? That’s just the way cricket goes sometimes, isn’t it? You have a bit of luck, and maybe it went my way today.”
England think the luck ran too far. Coaching staff and analyst Nathan Leamon spent part of the evening gathering video clips before deciding whether to lodge an official complaint. The dialogue, if it happens, is likely to be polite but pointed. The team argued in Perth earlier in the series that Snicko calibration felt “out”, and Wednesday’s incident has strengthened that view.
There are only two ICC-approved sound-based systems: RTS in Australia and UltraEdge everywhere else. Switching mid-series is not an option, yet trust in the kit is non-negotiable. Former elite umpire Simon Taufel, commentating for Channel 7, admitted the read-out looked odd. “The confusing element here for everyone was that the spike occurred at least a couple of frames before the bat, which was just amazing. I have never seen a spike like this occur without the bat hitting something like a pad, or the ground, or the ball hitting the pad,” he said on air. “My gut tells me, from all of my experience on-field, and also as a TV umpire, that I think Alex Carey has actually hit that ball and the technology calibration hasn’t been quite right to game the outcome that it was looking for.”
England bowling coach David Saker, usually measured on such matters, shared the dressing-room frustration. “The boys were pretty confident he hit it,” he said. “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.”
For now, England have 106 Carey runs to stomach and a hint of doubt about a tool meant to remove it. Whether the conversation with Crowe shifts anything in the short term is debatable, but one way or another RTS will remain under scrutiny for the rest of the summer.
