Jeremy Clarkson Forum

[MyTake]

If the ICC staged a World Cup for television coverage of cricket, England would be lucky to sneak into the competition at all. Their camera work is so woeful that one scarcely gets a perspective of where the ball is going. Once the ridiculous close-up of the batsman grimacing into a stroke alerts you to the fact that a shot has been played, a randomly selected camera pans for the ball, often resulting in a birds eye view of the local suburb and surrounds. All very well if you are a connoisseur of urban planning but totally useless if you are rather keen to know whether the skied orb of leather is going to land in the wicket keepers gloves, or in the triumphant hands of the pissed guy in a Big Bird suit in row Z of the north stand.

It is beyond me how inept the whole affair is. Surely the technology employed is similar worldwide. Surely they have at least some cameras that can focus to a wider degree than a head and shoulders shot – usually of the fielder who caught the ball on the boundary off-camera two minutes ago. Surely the chap in the big truck with lots of screens and buttons has a wider variety of shots to select from. I ask myself does he use that intriguing lever that looks like the throttle control of a Boeing 747. Maybe that’s the problem. Could it be that that piece of kit is actually the television equivalent of a gear lock. That would explain it. It obviously limits the type of views available to the truck fellow. Probably a Health and Safety issue. Maybe switching from close-ups to more informative wider angles brings on spontaneous epileptic fits. Personally the current setup brings on spontaneous fits of rage.

Whatever the case, watching last night’s meaningless game between South Africa and India was an exercise in frustration. Fortunately my companions all have well developed humour sensors and we could temper the irritation with witty comments about the ludicrously pathetic coverage. We were ably backed up by alcohol so despite the best efforts of whoever is running the show, the game was still enjoyable.

What is quite clear is that the production crew has precious little knowledge of ball sport, let alone cricket. Possibly they cut their teeth covering poker tournaments, or in a reality series on microsurgery, but they should stick to what they know best. Either that or take a one year sabbatical to work with the great team that make up Supersport in sunny South Africa. Even my Pommie mates agree that their coverage of sport sets the standard for the rest of the world. They clearly employ people who know about, care about, and love the sport they are covering. They provide them with more than three cameras, a truck without a governor on the technology, and an editor who is also interested to know beforehand whether a ball that is racing to the boundary has a fielder within proximity.

So bring on the ICC TV WC. If England manage to make the cut they will be hard pressed to beat Team Supersport South Africa.

So who will cover this great event? My 14 year old son reckons with a few Handicams and a laptop, he and some mates could do a better job than the current lot.

And they probably could.