SuperSport crew bust ball-tampering Bancroft

It was all in a day’s work for SuperSport’s super-sleuth camera crew who exposed Australian cricketer Cameron Bancroft for ball tampering during the team’s third Test against South Africa at Newlands in Cape Town over the weekend.

The crew’s head of sport production, Alvin Naicker, believed that years of work experience counted in their decision to follow Bancroft and the ball, after noticing that something “wasn’t kosher”.

He also squashed Proteas fast bowler Fanie De Villiers’ comment that he in fact instructed cameramen to “go out and have a look”.

Naicker said: “That is not true. Everyone is getting on the bandwagon. It’s a standard thing we do. If I were to count how many Test matches I have worked on, I would say 200. This is something we do as normal.

“Commentators will generally say ‘keep an eye on’ something, but in this case we have no recollection of that. I don’t recall him saying anything. He has probably been saying it after the first Test. That is probably what he means. I don’t think he was referring to this particular incident.”

What players should know, he added, is that the camera crew constantly keep an eye on the ball in terms of what’s happening, especially in-between deliveries.

“That is normal. But we have been keeping a close eye because obviously we saw the ball reversing quite a lot in Durban. In Port Elizabeth we didn’t see it much, but in this game we were keeping an eye on it.

“We had a few cameras following the ball. When it got to Bancroft, one of the cameramen stayed on him. He was working on the ball, but we then spotted something in between his fingers. It didn’t look normal to us, so the cameraman still stayed on him.

“That was not shown at that time straight away. We had to be quite confident there was something going on. He put his hand in his pocket, and you can see if someone has got (something) in his hand and he is putting it in his pocket. When we showed that on the big screen he reacted … he panicked. He put his hand back in his pocket, he took it out, and then he put it into his jocks.

“He (Bancroft) then looked visibly uncomfortable throughout that period. He didn’t realise that we had a camera on him the whole time, just to see what he was going to do.”

After one camera picked it up, two cameramen were instructed to stay on Bancroft from different angles. Naicker made it very clear that their decision was not “because it was Australia that was playing in the match”.

“Even if it was South Africa we would do exactly the same thing. We always keep an eye out for everything that’s going on. Cricket and rugby are two sports where the actual outcome from the match can be decided by television. So we have to be cautious about how we cover it and what we are doing. We have to be responsible for making sure that if we are showing something we are 100% sure.”

Naicker said he previewed everything before deciding to air the footage. “We don’t just put it on and make an assumption,” he added.

The camera crew were shocked by the incident, but felt for Bancroft, he said.

“We did feel sorry for him because he is a young player. But at the same time we have a responsibility to show that content. The response and the reaction is far greater than we have ever experienced.”

Info:

• The crew with commentators comprises about 100 people.
• There are up to 30 cameras used, including 17 manned cameras, and another 14 cameras, including stunt cameras and ultra-motion cameras.
• For each camera there are also computer-based machines that record footage continuously.

– yadhanaj@citizen.co.za

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