Alex Carey was at the centre of another Ashes controversy after England angrily declared his Adelaide century was essentially enabled by faulty technology.
Carey, who staunchly stood by his contentious stumping of Jonny Bairstow at Lord’s in 2023, conceded he likely edged Josh Tongue on 72 when a puzzling noise registered on the Real-Time Snickometer (RTS) technology.
After the 34-year-old was given not out on field by umpire Ahsan Raza, England quickly reviewed at the insistence of wicketkeeper Jamie Smith. RTS showed a noise but it did not sync up with footage of the ball going past Carey’s attempted cut shot.
Television umpire Chris Gaffaney gave it not out and Carey went out to post an emotional century in front of his home Adelaide crowd.
England’s bowling coach David Saker, the Melbourne-born former quick who played for Tasmania and Victoria, said it was not the first time in this NRMA Insurance series that the technology has looked off.
“The boys were pretty confident he hit it,” Saker told reporters at stumps on day one after Australia reached 8-326.
“I think the calibration of the ‘Snicko’ is out quite a bit, and that’s been probably 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.
“You’d think in this day and age, you would hope the technology is good enough to pick things up like that.”
The decision cost England 34 runs as Carey eventually fell for 106 late in the final session.
“I thought there was a bit of a feather or some sort of noise when it passed the bat,” said Carey after making his third Test hundred.
“It looked a bit funny on the replay, didn’t it, with the noise coming early. But 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.”
Asked if he was a “walker” – in the mould of another former Australia gloveman, Adam Gilchrist, who left the field whenever he believed he was out even if the umpire did not – Carey replied: “Clearly not!”
It comes after a similar incident in Perth when Smith and Carey’s roles were reversed, though England again got the raw end of the stick there.
Smith started walking off when, after being initially given not out, he saw a spike on RTS around before the ball passed his bat on an attempted pull shot to a leg-side delivery off Brendan Doggett.
Television umpire Sharfuddoula spent some time deliberating with the audio again not marrying up with the vision. After Smith’s initial admission of guilt, he started walking back to the middle before then eventually getting his marching orders.
The incidents will only strengthen the push for specialist television umpires, which former international official Simon Taufel has helped institute in the UAE’s ILT20 competition.
The ICC, which governs all international cricket, has not followed suit.
“The DRS was applied and for the third umpire to overturn the not out decision, we need to see a clear deflection off the bat, or we have to see a spike next to the bat or up to one frame past the bat,” Taufel told Channel Seven on Wednesday after Carey’s reprieve.
“The confusing element here for everyone was that the spike occurred at least a couple of frames before the bat, which was just amazing.
“What was interesting in this particular case and in my experience, 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.
“There’s nothing else out there, absolutely nothing else out there, so 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.”
2025-26 NRMA Insurance Men’s Ashes
First Test: Australia won by eight wickets
Second Test: Australia won by eight wickets
Third Test: December 17-21: Adelaide Oval, 10:30am AEDT
Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10:30am AEDT
Fifth Test: January 4-8: SCG, Sydney, 10:30am AEDT
Australia squad (third Test only): Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster
England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Matthew Fisher, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue
