Cricket: Skippers welcome Snicko

Brendon McCullum. Photo / Getty Images

Rival captains Brendon McCullum and Darren Sammy are taking a positive view of a new piece of technology to be used in the next two tests.

Real Time Snicko will be the latest tool in the third umpire's tool kit. The merging of picture and sound will take about 20 seconds and can be used to help identify edges, either for catches behind the wicket or lbws, upon a referral request from either side.

The system is being used in the Ashes series and it was quietly trialled at Dunedin during the first test.

The two captains and management teams met separately with match referee Roshan Mahanama, the International Cricket Council's general manager, Geoff Allardice, and ICC umpires' manager, Simon Taufel, before yesterday's announcement.

"It's fast, it's automatic and it's controlled by the technology providers, which is a bit different to the Snicko we've known for the last 10-20 years," Allardice said.

Sammy is supportive.

"Whatever will aid in helping getting the correct decisions we are all up for it," he said.

"Hopefully we will get all the decisions right, whether it be with Snicko or Hot Spot.

"We are not playing in the 90s, it's 2013. A lot of things have improved and we are happy it's a new addition to help the umpires."

McCullum reckoned "it looks like a good product, hopefully the implementation is good as well".

"It's not going to be 100 per cent right but if we're getting more decisions right more often then it's certainly got its place."

McCullum quipped that "my ability to refer decision isn't great, so we'll have to work on a method to improve that".