In just two days of the third Test of the Ashes at Adelaide, a common antagonist emerged between the two warring sides of England and Australia: the Snicko system.
The Snicko was already under the scanner on day 1 of the third Test for a reprieve it gave to Australia’s Alex Carey, who went on to plunder a century for the team that’s 2-0 in the five-Test Ashes after two Tests. But on Thursday, two incidents, both involving England’s Jamie Smith, further raised the heat on the system, after the technology apparently failed to catch the ball kissing Smith’s glove on the first incident and then detected an edge on a ball two overs later when the ball seemed to have missed the bat by some distance.
After the two incidents former England captain Nasser Hussain slammed the system and said everyone in Adelaide, from fans to players to pundits, had lost faith in the system.
Before he started criticising the Snicko, he did point out that England’s situation in the Ashes series is not primarily due to the Snicko system.
England’s Jamie Smith leaves the field after losing his wicket during play on day two of the third Ashes cricket test between England and Australia in Adelaide, Australia, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo)
“England aren’t 2-0 down and had another bad day because of Snicko. England are not losing the Ashes because of the Snicko,” Hussain told Sky Sports before continuing. “But I will say everyone out here has lost faith in Snicko. You could hear on the stump mic, some of the Australian players saying ‘it’s a joke’ or that ‘it’s a terrible system’. The crowd in the stands or the people watching at home, have completely lost faith with the system. Then you get into dangerous territory. You have the third umpire guessing, They’re trying to work out when the noise came, when did the ball go past the bat.”
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He called the two incidents involving Jamie Smith ‘farcical’.
“It was farcical today. Jamie Smith clearly gloved one, to the slip cordon. All they were checking was whether Usman Khawaja took the catch cleanly or not. I’m not sure if Khawaja did take the catch cleanly. It looked like it could well have been a bump ball. That’s a 50-50 call. But it was overruled on the fact that the third umpire decided that the ball did not hit the glove because the Snicko was not quite aligned with it. It clearly hit the glove. You can imagine Australia’s frustration. Forget the Carey thing yesterday. Two wrongs don’t make a right! So that (Smith) decision was just wrong. And then Jamie Smith goes for a pull shot and he was given out. And you can imagine the frustration from Smith and Ben Stokes, they just could not believe it. So everyone out here has lost faith with the technology. That’s a dangerous place to be in. Cricket has set the tone in how technology is used in sport. It’s not like VAR (in football) where there’s been huge controversies. Cricket and technology and the DRS system has worked. But it’s not working in this series. And that is not me being a whingeing Pom by the way. It’s been the same for both sides,” Hussain added.
