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“Lost faith”: Multiple issues stir questions over Snicko
Ethan Clark • December 18th, 2025 9:27 pm
Amidst a day of extreme heat, perhaps the most heat has landed on Snicko as it continues to stir controversy.
Day 1 saw Alex Carey survive an adamant English review that he had edged behind to Jamie Smith on 72.
The spike appeared on Snicko but was ignored due to the distance between bat and ball and Carey went on to make a famous century in front of his adoring home fans.
BBG Sports, the owners of Snicko, explained overnight where the error may have originated from.
"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 explained.
"In light of this, BBG Sports takes full responsibility for the error."
This was not the last of the issues with Snicko, though, as the technology was brought into question yet again on two occasions during Day 2.
Jamie Smith fended at a Pat Cummins delivery aimed at his head which was caught by Usman Khawaja at slip, umpire Nitin Menon gave no decision but went to square leg to ask if it had carried. This resulted in an umpire review.
Snicko determined that it had in fact deflected off Smith’s helmet and he survived.
Shortly after this, Smith was caught up again in a pull shot that Carey and Cummins were convinced had been edged.
Yet again, and more questionably given the ball clearly carried to Carey, Menon gave no decision and went upstairs in an umpire review.
All the while, Jamie Smith was preparing to send it upstairs in his own review if he was given out. Such was the confidence that the wicket keeper had not hit it.
Snicko showed a spike on the second of two frames where the ball was in front of and then behind the bat respectively.
However, given the vicinity to the bat and the fact it was a mere one frame off, this was given out and Smith had to go for 22.
In the wake of this debacle, Mitchell Starc could be heard on Channel 7 stump mics making the following comments.
“Snicko needs to be sacked. That's the worst technology there is. They make a mistake the other day and they make another mistake today,” Starc said.
Clearly the pressure is mounting on BBG Sport and the ICC to ensure function of its only technology in place to detect edges ever since the reduction of hotpot usage.
“It hasn’t got many supporters, and I think the players have lost faith, well they’ve verbalised that. I think the umpires have lost faith,” Damien Fleming said on SEN Cricket.
“It was a mess by the end,” Gerard Whateley added.
England return to the crease on the morning of Day 3 at 8/213.
