Cricket Australia apologise after "catastrophic" Gabba power failure brings down TV pictures

It left fans both in Australia and around the world without the live feed from the ground as operatives inside scrambled to find a solution

Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley has apologised after TV viewers were left without pictures from the first Ashes Test for nearly half an hour on day four because of a technical error at the Gabba.

In what was described as a "catastrophic" power failure at the Brisbane venue, a generator upon which the outside broadcast trucks relied packed in during the morning session on Saturday.

It left fans both in Australia and around the world without the live feed from the ground as operatives inside scrambled to find a solution.

In the UK, BT Sport's workaround was to show the action from their single camera stationed in one corner of the ground for interviews. Channel7, meanwhile, used two static cameras behind the bowler's arm at one end to beam some semblance of live coverage out to the wider world.

Reports in Australia suggested that only a third of the typical number of broadcast engineers and technical staff were on site for the Test, owing to Covid-19 border restrictions.

The ground would usually have 100 production crew members on hand for events such as a Test match, but Aussie media stated that there were only around 30 at the game over its four-day duration.

^{Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley has apologised for the technical issues at the Gabba (Mark Evans/Getty Images)}

Commentary teams for Fox and Channel7 were working remotely from Melbourne and Sydney, too, meaning when the feed went down only the supporters inside the ground and local media knew what was going on on the pitch.

The lack of staff had already been evident when the front-foot no-ball cameras broke down before the start of the game and the relevant expertise was not available to fix them, while Snicko malfunctioned and was also out of action.

The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Saturday that Cricket Austalia had been warned about the inherent risk of understaffing the match from a technological perspective on "numerous occasions" over the course of 2021. 

“It hasn’t been ideal, and we’re very sorry for the fans,” Hockley said. “Ultimately these things happen. My understanding of the situation is it was an issue with one of the generators in the outside broadcast compound.

“[We’re] very appreciate of everyone who worked very quickly to get the feeds and the signal back up and running. But we can only apologise to the fans. Throughout this last 18 months we’ve done everything we possibly can to play the schedules as planned, and the reason for that is because we’ve been putting cricket fans first right around the country.”

Saturday's shenanigans has added further volume to the criticism of allowing Brisbane to host the first Test.

“There’s been a lot of radio and TV commentators commentating off the broadcast feeds in Sydney or Melbourne,” Hockley said. “Personally, I would’ve absolutely loved to be at the Gabba these last few days, but because of border restrictions I’m not able to.

“So we thank everyone for their flexibility, their ingenuity, and hopefully we’re back open and back to normal as quickly as we possibly can. The main thing is we’re just thrilled we’re able to play the series and there are times over the last three to six months where we thought it might not even happen. So to see a packed Gabba has been fantastic.”

Our coverage of the Ashes is brought to you in association with Cricket 22

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