SYDNEY: Television’s “spidercam” found itself at the centre of controversy over a dropped Australian catch on the third day of the final Test against India here on Thursday.

Australia skipper Steve Smith put down a skied chance off Lokesh Rahul on 46 before lunch, and then appeared to blame spidercam for missing the catch.

Cricket Australia and the Nine Network later confirmed that Smith had been “distracted by one of the wires in his eyeline”.

“We (CA and Nine) have spoken about the matter involving spidercam and the dropped catch before lunch and it’s clear the ball did not hit the camera or its supporting wires,” the joint statement read.

“Captain Steve Smith was distracted by one of the wires in his eyeline. Both CA and Nine will continue to work together on the use of spidercam in the broadcast coverage and will take on board any player feedback as necessary.

“As it stands, if any player has a concern about the placement of spidercam they can ask the umpires for it to be moved.”

Australia coach Darren Lehmann said that while he is a fan of spidercam, he thinks it is down its future positioning during games needs to be thought out.

“It wasn’t ideal where it was positioned for that particular ball,” he said. “I like watching it, but I think they have to get the position right when the bowler’s bowling, particularly on the off-side which we are speaking to Channel Nine about it, making sure we get that right moving forward.”

Spidercam is a camera system which gives viewers a bird’s eye view of the action and uses cables to carry a camera-platform along a track between two mounting-points. It is also able to change its altitude at any given moment.

“It was just the wire moving as the ball was coming down,” Lehmann said of Smith’s split catch. “And then he had the sun, it was a pretty difficult catch with that. You still would love him to take it, but he didn’t.”—AFP

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2015

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