Last Updated on 4 months ago by Charbel Coorey

Cricket Australia (CA) CEO Todd Greenberg has expressed his discontent with snicko during the second Ashes Test at Adelaide. There have been a number of controversial moments relating to snicko on the opening two days, leading to Mitchell Starc saying “snicko needs to be sacked. That’s the worst technology there is,” near the stump microphone.

Starc’s frustration was in relation to the third umpire deeming the ball missed Jamie Smith’s glove and only hit his helmet off Pat Cummins’ bowling. Usman Khawaja’s attempted catch hit the ground first, but the decision had the Australians bewildered.

“They make a mistake the other day, and they make another mistake today,” Starc continued.

Smith was in the action soon after, given out caught behind as snicko showed a spike on the first frame after the ball passed the toe end of the bat. On-field umpire Nitin Menon didn’t formally make a decision, but the fact he sent it upstairs to check whether Alex Carey’s catch was legal suggests he thought England’s keeper-batsman had hit the ball.

Smith, Ben Stokes and England fans were left furious after the Alex Carey not out call yesterday. The spike came well before the ball reached Carey’s bat, but BBG Sports, the company who manages snicko, says there was a calibration error.

CA CEO Todd Greenberg not happy with snicko

“It certainly caused me some heartburn because the whole idea of technology is to take away the clanger or the howler,” Greenberg said on SEN radio.

“From what I can understand having dug into it last night and this morning is human error.

“There’s two human errors there – one is the actual decision from the umpire, and then there’s supposed to be a failsafe with the technology and it didn’t happen. In my view it’s not good enough.

“We’re asking a lot of questions of the provider through the broadcasters and we’re hoping to get some answers so we can be assured it won’t happen again.”

Ricky Ponting sympathises with the TV umpire Chris Gaffaney. The former Australian captain says Gaffaney doesn’t have the tools to be confident in his decision-making.

“This technology that we are using here is simply not as good as technology that’s used in other countries,” Ponting said on Channel 7. “You talk to the umpires, they’ll tell you the same thing. They can’t trust it.”

Snicko wasn’t the only source of controversy on day two. Joe Root was given the benefit of the doubt in the morning session with Gaffaney deeming the ball bounced before Carey’s gloves after an inside edge onto Root’s pad.

However, England’s all-time leading run-scorer couldn’t make an impact as the visitors crumbled in the face of disciplined Australian bowling on a flat Adelaide pitch. The Australian attack worked magnificently as a unit in very hot conditions, with even Cameron Green producing a peach to remove Harry Brook.

The visitors ended day two on 213/8, still 158 runs behind. Ben Stokes is unbeaten on 45 off 151 balls, while Jofra Archer has batted fluently for his 48-ball 30.