Australia is an international laughing stock in cricket circles after the entire world was cut off from watching the Ashes on Saturday.
An extraordinary tech failure has resulted in millions of viewers around the world being denied a chance to watch the Ashes.
The first Test in Brisbane turned into a farce when Fox Cricket and Channel 7 both began to experience audio and visual failures on day 4.
Fox was forced to switch to its aerial camera for several minutes before the only camera option left was the shot of the commentators inside the Fox Cricket studio.
Channel 7 was also undone by the same technical failure and had been unable to access the majority of camera angles used by the world feed.
Seven has since clarified the network, as the unilateral broadcaster, was able to continue to broadcast the contest following the initial outage by relying on the four additional cameras it had available at the Gabba that are independent of the world feed breakdown.
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The world feed is captured by the host broadcaster and broadcast to international audiences around the world.
Play continued at the Gabba for more than 30 minutes while TV audiences were unable to watch any of the action.
Cricket Australia released a statement to respond to the extraordinary scenes.
“There has been a power issue affecting the broadcast compound at the Gabba, resulting in the world feed going down and all resulting technology not working,” the statement claimed.
“The issue is being worked on with the aim to get everything working as soon as possible.”
It was also confirmed that the DRS technology was not available at the time.
It was a nightmare for the TV commentators who were forced to call some of the action blind while trying to update the audience on the work being done to fix the problem.
The Brisbane Test has been plagued by technical issues all week.
The technology that allows the video umpire to review no-balls every delivery is not in place this test, as exposed by Ben Stokes bowling four consecutive no-balls on Day 2.
Some commentators declared on Twitter, the test should never have been held in Queensland as a result of the state’s border restrictions and biosecurity rules.
The Guardian’s Ali Martin described it as a “shambles”.
The Telegraph’s Nick Hoult posted: “Seven cameras gone down now. Commentators are covering the game off the tv because of quarantine rules so nobody knows what’s happening. Test should never have been played in Queensland”.
English cricket reporter Chris Stocks said it is “hugely embarrassing for Cricket Australia”.
“Decision to play this Test on this date somewhere where the world’s media and many TV tech staff were shut out is a disgrace. It’s a farce,” he posted on Twitter.
Channel 7 also saw the lighter side of the situation.
The DRS was back available for the test several minutes later, but Channel 7 and Fox Cricket were still being forced to call the action from limited cameras an hour after the glitches first appeared.