Why Jamie Smith was given out in controversial second inn...

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Cricket

Why Jamie Smith was given out in controversial second innings decision

Smith was judged to have made contact with the ball after a DRS review

Michael JonesSaturday 22 November 2025 07:15 GMTComments

open image in gallery(AFP via Getty Images)

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Jamie Smith’s dismissal in England’s second innings of the first Ashes Test was a controversial moment on another thrilling day of cricket.

England had continued their momentum from day one by quickly dismissing Nathan Lyon and navigating the morning session with a lead of 99 runs.

However, Australia fought back after lunch and a beautiful spell of bowling from Scott Boland, aided by Mitchell Starc, saw the tourists lose four wickets for 11 runs in just 19 deliveries.

Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Harry Brook and Joe Root were all skittled during the combined spell from the two experienced Australians and when Starc nicked off Ben Stokes England had truly collapsed.

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Smith was the only recognised batter remaining and attempted to guide a short ball from Brendan Doggett away on the legside.

There was a furious appeal from Travis Head at short leg, but the umpire initially gave it not out before Australia decided to review.

That set up a five-minute consultation of the technology from the third umpire who used snicko, video replay and enhanced pictures to decide that Smith had made contact with the ball.

As the review went on, the replays showed a clear gap between bat and ball at the time snicko registered a noise which convinced the England fans, and some watching commentators that Smith would be judged not out.

open image in gallery(Getty Images)

That was not the case with the third umpire determining that the murmur on snicko was enough evidence to overturn the on-field decision.

According to TNT Sports pundit Steven Finn, the Snicko technology is slightly different to the Ultra Edge technology used in England and allows for a one frame discrepancy between images and noise which explains why the pictures were out of sync with the images shown to the third umpire.

A similar incident occurred in Australia’s first innings but on that occasion Marnus Labuschagne was judged to be not out.

Smith’s dismissal was one of nine English wickets to fall in the afternoon session of day two as the tourists were bowled out for 164 with Australia needing 205 runs to win the Test.