Cricket fans cry Ashes shame: worst I’ve ever seen

Another breathtaking innings by Stokes and heavy hitting through England’s tail on day two of the third Test was somewhat marred by poor deliveries – frustrating cricket fans across the world.

To be fair, it couldn’t have been an easy task trying to track down all of Stokes’ shots that went to the boundary – and over – at warp speed.

But too many times the camera was on the boundary for viewers to notice that the infielder had stopped the ball.

Or the shot disappears into the stands with no idea where it went.

And when we started missing the loot, social media erupted.

“Stoks out. And we didn’t see it. Again. For God’s sake this is literally unwatchable. Due to completely incompetent camerawork, you literally can’t tell where the ball has hit every time the batsman plays the shot. Worst I’ve ever seen. Disgraceful,” tweeted the veteran Aussie sports reporter Rohan Connolly.

“Camera action, literally ball tracking, in the telecast of this Sshes series has been the worst I have ever seen in an international cricket series,” one angry fan wrote. “Who is the host broadcaster? Are they blind?”

Another described the camera work as an “amateur lesson”.

“This camerawork is not in the spirit of cricket,” added a third.

“I’ve never seen a camera work this badly in all my time watching Test cricket (45 years) at Headingly,” wrote a fourth. “It’s a shame considering the huge number of viewers around the world.”

After Mark Wood scored 24 off just eight balls and Stokes hit Australian spinner Todd Murphy with five sixes, frustration led to the time to adopt golf’s ball-tracking technology.

Channel 9 will broadcast the series in Australia, but will include a world feed produced by the UK’s Sky Sports.

It prompted Aussie fans to slam the Poms for another setback.

“I’ve seen and worked enough on TV to know the difference between a bad shot selection and a miss. The main camera does NOT pick up the ball, it’s not about shot selection, Connolly tweeted.

“Definitely a tracking problem,” came the reply. “The set-up of the nine is at least eight cameras, including one tracking the ball in flight and one tracking the fielder/direction it’s going. The control room moves between them accordingly. Either Sky doesn’t use enough cameras or their operators are useless.

Fortunately, Team Sky’s job was made easier in the final session as Australia played cautiously as they built their first innings lead.