Annoyance, scapegoat, or transmitter of amazing sporting pictures? Spidercam has been described as all of those things after Australian captain Steve Smith was distracted by a wire supporting Channel Nine's aerial camera before dropping a straightforward catch during the Sydney Test.

Coach Darren Lehmann said Spidercam was in the wrong spot when Smith dropped the catch but believes it provides great entertainment for cricket viewers. He wants it moved out of players' field of vision when the ball is bowled and declared this would happen through discussions with Nine and Cricket Australia.

The drop allowed Indian batsman Lokesh Rahul to post his maiden Test century and could prove costly to Australia's hopes of winning at the SCG.

It was one of two chances put down by Smith on day three.

Spidercam is one of Nine's most valued technological tools, sweeping above huddles and wicket celebrations to provide viewers with unrivalled angles, suspended by a web of cables.

Cricket Australia and its broadcast partner admitted one of the wires distracted Smith after he ran back from the slips cordon and hovered under a skied pull shot.

After the ball slipped through his hands, Smith pointed skywards and mouthed: "F---ing wire."

"I think it gives great vision for the people at home and the entertainment throughout the day. We have just got to make sure it's positioned right and on that particular occasion it was probably in the wrong spot," Lehmann said, adding that it should be positioned out of the way at deep cover.

"I'm sure CA and Channel Nine will work that out and get it better."

"It was just the wire moving and the camera moving as the ball was coming down. And he had the sun, it was a pretty difficult catch with that. We still would love him to take it but he didn't."

Nine head of sport Steve Crawley immediately sent his engineers to investigate and established the ball had not hit either the camera or the wire.

The wires are covered in mesh so they don't glint in the sun.

"Captain Steve Smith was distracted by one of the wires in his eye line. Both CA and Nine will continue to work together on the use of Spidercam in the broadcast coverage and will take on board any player feedback as necessary," Nine and CA said in a joint statement.

"If any player has a concern about the placement of Spidercam they can ask the umpires for it to be moved.

"Spidercam technology has been used in Nine's international cricket coverage for many years and is used in other major sporting events such as the Super Bowl, NRL and AFL grand finals."

Former Australian batsman Dean Jones, one of the organisers of the defunct Indian Cricket League that pioneered the aerial cameras, said Smith should have taken the catch.

"He had bad footwork from the get-go and he panicked," Jones said. He believed drones, already used to deliver spectacular footage in surfing, would eventually be used in cricket coverage.

The German-made aerial cameras were introduced to Nine's Test coverage in 2012. Even then there had been complications in other sports, including reports of football goalkeepers bumping the cameras.

At the 2012 Champions League, the batting team was disadvantaged when Mumbai's Dinesh Karthik smashed a ball from Sydney Sixers all-rounder Moises Henriques into the Spidercam above the pitch. It was declared a dead ball.

Players sometimes find Spidercam annoying because it hovers in their face as they walked out to bat. It stalkedRicky Ponting as he arrived at the crease for his final Test innings against South Africa in Perth.

Smith, usually a gun fielder, was already a frustrated man when the incident happened. A fielding balls-up saw Rahul survive a run-out chance and Smith later dropped Virat Kohli✓ in the slips on 59, and watched the Indian captain notch a fourth century for the series.

Whatever tweaks are made to its use, Spidercam is so important to Nine's coverage that it's here to stay.