BBL captains Aaron Finch and Alex Carey were forced to intervene after an umpiring mix-up in Adelaide resulted in the Power Surge not being officially called, despite Carey, the batsman, signalling it to the on-field umpires.
The incident began just before the 14th over of Adelaide Strikers’ innings against Melbourne Renegades. Finch, the Renegades captain, was standing mid-pitch when Carey, batting alongside Phil Salt, gestured the Power Surge signal to the on-field umpires. Finch, having seen the signal, positioned just two men outside the 30-yard circle in accordance with the rules. However, the umpires did not signal Power Surge before the over, as is the norm.
Three balls into the over, Finch, mic’d up and in conversation with the commentators, walked up to the umpire to ask why the Power Surge, one of the three new rules introduced this season, was not officially signalled. Television replays showed that while Finch had observed Carey’s signal, the umpires had missed it completely. “We had no communication,” one of the umpires were heard telling Finch, after which he walked up to Carey to assess the situation.
Carey, who hit two sixes and a two off the first three balls of the over, clarified that he had indeed given a signal, and asked Finch to continue with the over as a Power Surge, despite the miscommunication. “Yeah, 100 per cent [I called it] and they just showed it on the screen so you’re fine,” Carey was heard telling Finch.
“Great sportsmanship from Alex Carey,” said the TV commentators, lauding the wicketkeeper-batsman’s decision to continue with the Power Surge despite the umpiring mix-up. “Isn’t that nice… It could have been very easy to say ‘Well, it’s not our fault that the umpire didn’t signal it, we told him’,” added Shane Warne.
Despite going for 25 runs in the over, Finch saw the lighter side of the whole mix-up, and praised Carey for agreeing to continue the Surge for the rest of the over.
“Clearly we had two blokes at the boundary,” Finch told the commentators. “Not sure if that would be the smartest thing tactically in the 14th over [without the Surge]!”
“To Alex’s credit, he said: ‘Yeah, we called it. You guys [umpires] haven’t called it, can we just play this as the Surge’, so right call in the end.”
Carey and Salt’s 75-run partnership helped Strikers post 177-7 in 2o overs, which Finch’s team managed to chase down with a ball to spare.
You can watch the entire incident on the cricket.com.au website here.
