Eeew, what a close game! Bangers vs. Zim-Match 3.

Previously on days of our lives, Neil ‘manners’ Manthorp won the 21 dollar sweep from match 2. Offered to buy the crew some beers with his winnings after the ODI but then promptly ducked off to his hotel after the days play. His excuse was that Steven Segal had to get back to the hotel so that he could break his fast and that he was the only one that could give him a lift there. Unbelievable!

So what happened with the sweep on match 3? Well, he with the most nose knows most and Lo has a rather prominent nose so he must know a lot! And that knowledge translated into him winning the sweep on match 3. Beginning to wonder how he does it. I am sure it’s because he makes up the rules as well as the ‘challenge’ for the sweep on that day. Lo has won the sweep for match 1 and 3 now. Anyone know a good auditor? You’re kidding me!

Here’s a very quick rundown on some nicknames of people on our crew. Steven Segal; Dik / Village; Manners; Dean 2+3; Hans; Guthers; Lo; Felix the Black Cat (because he’s always on life 9); Pete Le Strange; Harro / Ballie; Kamba; Z; B; Tofaz; Kep; Kirabooo and Pommie are but just a few of our crew. Will endeavor to get some more. We sound like a bunch of real professionals don’t we!

Call time to leave for Bulawayo on Wed the 17^th of August was 07h30. Some never made the early call time leaving others a little miffed that they also hadn’t slept in and missed the call time. The bus waited though, as did everyone else for the unmentioned, B, person to eventually arrive.

We arrived in Bulawayo safe and sound. Phillip copped a USD 20 speeding ticket for doing 110kph in an 80 kph zone. Kep and Pommie also had a woeful tale that encompassed an hour round trip backwards and forwards between roadside police officers and the police station. All the traffic cop wanted was a USD 15 bribe but Kep and Pommie refused on principle to cough up. Good on them! The roads we travelled on were really good but the same cannot be said for the driving ability of some people HERE.

We were rather surprised to find that our booked rooms at the Holiday Inn had been given away and with nowhere to stay in Bulawayo, B and Z had to do some serious head scratching and secure rooms at the Rainbow Hotel. Well done. Else we were sleeping on the streets and it is leeu koud here at the moment!

Dougie the groundsman, who is from Harare, instructed the Bulawayo groundstaff to water the pitch with a hosepipe. They thought better and decided to use a sprinkler instead because it was easier. 12 hours of watering later he suddenly had lotsa grass and a rather soft pitch. Check the images for the amount of grasss he mowed off the two pitches and trust me, it looks like he’s mowed the outfield there’s that much grass in the bucket! They’re sweating bullets trying to get this pitch sorted for the 4^th ODI. Two words, crisis management.

It’s almost time to head home. Two more ODI matches and then were outa here!

Ever get the feeling someone is watching you? Couldn’t understand why this chap is on the cover of every Herald newspaper, daily. Then someone told me that the Herald is the ZANU-PF mouthpiece.

Rudi having a look at how TV cameras work.

 

This is an ATM in Zimbabwe, a safe at the back and some form of dispensing at the front. If this was in South Africa it would have been chained to something and if not chained to something, then gone.

Hungry anyone? A fairly humorous image depicting GM foods.

Green, green grass of home!

Sweeping Times.

Rory ran a sweep amongst the TV crew for the first ODI, one US dollar got you in. The sweep was to guess the total runs scored in the first ODI. Instinctively I said 360 but then change it to 340, gave it more thought then decide to stay with my first instinct. It was great fun to track the progress of the various players in the sweep as the ODI developed. Who was falling out and who was coming into play. It ended up being a race between Z, Lo and me. Z guessed 320 and Lo guessed 387 odd I think. Some overs I was asking Zim to take a wicket and curb the run rate to keep me in the sweep, and they would! It see sawed back and forth like crazy, Z would be in it, out, then in and eventually out altogether. Then it was just between Lo and myself.

As it turned out Bangladesh ended up scoring 184 which sort of put me out of the sweep if Zim won the match, so at the change of innings, I changed allegiance and started cheering for Bangers! It was really fun because there was interest from everyone involved with the sweep in every delivery bowled and shot played which also makes the day and production exciting and go by that much quicker. Well Zim certainly had no interest in me winning the sweep. They ended up drilling Bangers and winning the match by 4 wickets and Lo walked away with the spoils, 17 US dollars. Lucky bugger. Wish it was me!

The cameramen hear the stump mics in their headsets all the time during a match. This helps them hear what the ball is doing off the bat when a shot is played so that they can follow it. One of the fun things that comes from hearing the stump mics is you often hear what the wicket keeper has to say, and they say a lot! Andrew reckons Mushfiqur, the Bangers keeper, was shouting at one of the fielders after a shot was played and the ball rolled into the outfield- ball Saqi, ball Saqi. Read it out loud, fast and repeatedly and maybe in Afrikaans.

Good news is that both EVS machines are working and the van hasn’t caught alight, yet. A friend of a friend here in Zim had secondhand SCUSSI drives and was kind enough to loan them to us.

The caterers have finally come to their senses and are letting us dish up our own food.  We were given the most ridiculous portions, 3 cubes of meat at the one lunch. One piece of chicken at another. Some guys only got a wing! I’m not talking about big pieces here either.

This great advice from a local newspaper here in Zimbabwe for when you are driving - Don’t sleep on the wheel.

THIS is probably how not to do it!

Our trusty steed and universal mode of transport, the bus.

Another great day here in Africa.

Zimbabwe Victorious!

We never thought Zim would do it but they did. They managed to bowl the Bangies out on day 5 to win their first test match since re-admission to the international test scene. Bangers came out smashing the ball all over the park and I honestly thought if they carry on like this then they are going wack Zim. The Zimbabwe bowlers stuck to their guns and eventually bowled the Bengal Tigers out. Shew!

Check out THIS great montage which Adam cut for the final day of the test match and summarises the 5 days quite nicely. He cuts motages like these each day for when we go off air while playing out replays for the production. Top man.

It was great that the cricket day finished early. Great for us freelancers because it’s almost like a paid vacation. Our test match sponsor, Castle, supplied the crew with some ice cold refreshments and the crew celebrated in style with some of the guys even resorting to a rigorous game of chess! Arnie seems to be the chess king with chess battles raging at every opportunity. Pommie and the rest of the production crew thought otherwise and socialized instead.

Later that day and unbeknown to some of the crew, Zingi and Rory had their phones stolen at the Maiden. Seems like quite a theft hotspot.

Off days between games bring a fantastic opportunity about to go out and explore. Although I am sure some of the crew hung around in their rooms recovering. Lo and Andrew went fishing with Lo lucking in and hooking a 30cm bass and Andrew lucking out. The skipper of the boat hooked a cracker of a bass and as Lo put it, the guy was frothing!

Phillip and I walked to the stadium and played a couple of games of squash. We taxied back to the hotel as we weren’t amped to walk another 40 minutes to get back there. We hooked a couple of supplies at the local Spar near the ground. It’s full of groceries and the prices seem fairly close to the South African equivalents. Maybe just a touch more expensive.

Just for the record, between Lo, Andrew, Phillip and I, we have broken 3 of the hotels tennis racquets! Ouch. And I won’t mention a word about the really classic game of golf that Phillip and Andrew had on Thursday. Out of bounds, club abuse, about 15 lost balls and that's all I’m going to say! Although Maggie, our local taxi driver, is just full of classic sayings and expressions. A colourful personality!

And it seems like Pommie and Kep just keep on running. I’m not sure who they are running from but they always arrive at brekkie in their running kit. I’m sure it’s just a smoke screen to make us think that they are still sooper fit ex-cricketers.

Our first ODI starts tomorrow, Friday the 12^th. We’ve FACS (facility and communications check) checked and thankfully everything is working. The graphics dudes are hard at work prepping for the ODI games. They need to prep due to differences in the test and ODI data bases or more simply put, the players test numbers are different to their ODI numbers, so all that info needs to be updated as well as various other information. The cameramen are really happy that were into the ODI’s as the white ball is easier to follow.  We’re trying to source a SCUSSI hard drive so that we can fix the spare EVS. Cross fingers! Technical products are about as scarce as hens’ teeth in this country, and so is the internet. 

Z, and crew just chilling after day five's early finish.

Let the celebrations begin!

Lawrence admiring Arnies camera.

Andrew and Arnold 'battling'.

The Bangladesh ENG crews filming and interviewing various players after their humbling defeat.

Lunch time up on the camera platform.

Bangers and Mash!

Commentators are pretty funny guys behind the scenes. They communicate with us in the van by talking on the same microphone that you, the viewer, will hear them on at home. How does the viewer at home not hear what is being said to the van downstairs? Their microphones are connected to a box and that box links them with the van downstairs. On that box are quite a few buttons and one of them is a talk back button which allows them to chat to the van by pressing and holding the button down which cuts the mic and stops it going to air and re-directs it to the van instead. Neil happened to deliver a good couple of sentences on the talk back to the van instead of to air which generally gets us in stitches because they now have to recover and recompose themselves and start all over again. Neil made it even funnier because he tried to make out as if he meant to do that which makes it even funnier because we all know he never  meant to.

Some crazy things can happen when you have to stay in a hotel for long enough. I got woken up at 2am by my next door neighbour having, as Andrew put it, Sexy Times! Man I was glad when it was over and could finally go back to sleep. Ah well I suppose that can be expected to happen at some time in one’s life.

Monday is the final day of the first test match in Zimbabwe since ages ago and it looks like they are going to beat bangers and mash. And not because Bangers are really weak but because Zim had really good strategies in place from day one, and it showed. Every day of the test match was pretty exciting and I think there are really good times ahead for Zimbabwe cricket.

Check THIS short clip for play of the week.

Pete our statistician sitting in the OB van and going through some notes with Felix our graphics operator.

Good Times!

Kepler had another class comment yesterday. He reckons Neil should be on ritalin because he can’t keep to one topic while commentating. I tend to disagree and think he has done a fantastic job as have every single one of our crew!

 Dean du Plessis, better known as Dean two plus three, the only blind commentator I know is also pulling a ‘blinder’. He is just amazing. For anyone wondering what I’m on about just watch some of the cricket when he is commentating and you’ll see why. He gets very little prompting from anyone regarding what’s happening on air. It’s just so uncanny!

Pete, our statistics guy, got left behind at the hotel this fine Sunday morning. That’s what happens on a production if you don’t make the 8 o’clock call time. So he’ll have to spend some of his own money to get to the ground.

Our master record machine died towards the end of the day just as we were changing tapes. We missed the last Bangladesh wicket which is a big bummer but not much we could do about it at the time. It’s one of those things I’m afraid. The engineers worked quickly during tea time to get the stuck tape out and the deck working for the remainder of the day. We requested a new deck for this morning but in true Zimbabwe tradition the new deck wasn’t here by morning but will be here later were told. This to me is a sign that tape should quietly go away and that we should look to solid state recorders.

Graphics struggled again yesterday with the outstats of the Bangladesh batsmen. It is really difficult when you don’t work with those teams often and were all hoping that they’ll get it right soon. Maybe they should study the team photos a little more? If Dean two plus three can get it right and he’s completely blind then what excuse could the graphics guys possibly have?

Andrew guarding his camera position.

Oscar looking on as some of the crew fill their down time before the long cricket day begins.

Incredible Zimbabwe!

What a great day for Zimbabwe cricket.

They came out this morning and put a few more runs on the board. The tail fell away quite quickly though and they ended up 370 all out.

We had the match officials here in the OB van inspecting Raymond Price’s wicket. They wanted to see the real time version, the one you see at home, as well as any other angles which we had just to check that the decision made on-field was the correct one.  After some brief deliberation the decision was made. It’s great to see this sort of thing and the main motivation for the visit to the OB van is to improve the on-field umpire decision making process. This I think we can all agree on is a good thing for everybody. The decision by the match referee was that the on-field umpire had made the correct decision. A great example of using technology to improve cricketing standards.

Bangers and mash came out to bat and Mr. Vitori lived up to some of his hype and took two great wickets, quickity quick. In general Zimbabwe really look like they are on the up and up, in all sorts of ways.

Oh well, another long day in the field for both the OB crew and the cricketers. There is a lot of talk amongst the crew regarding the scandal that has broken at Cricket South Africa. Something about 68 million rand. We'll have to see what washes out there.

A few of us are off to play squash again this evening and we'll be going to bed dreaming of bangers getting smashed by tea time tomorrow. Hopefully this match will finish in three days and give us some time off.

The commentary area in its finished state.

Phillip, our satellite guy in his environment. He’s glad to have made it through the border.

Test Match Time is Here!

Kepler, Phillip, Andrew and I got chatting over a cup of coffee in the hotel foyer and Kepler dropped this lekker funny joke.

Van der Merwe is sitting in jail and this new guy arrives. Van reckons he was the ugliest guy he has ever seen. So as this really ugly guy walks past, old Van reckons “Hey mate, the robbery is over, you can take that mask off now!”

Day one on air went very well considering the past history of the van we are working in. Usually things catch alight or the power goes. The graphics guys had a bit of a hard time identifying the Bangladeshi players so hopefully it goes better on day two!

Athar is now known as Steven Segal because of the similarities in hairdo and not because of his ninja fighting skills! His hair is not quite as pulled back as Stevens but the little pony tail at the back is definitely there. So all day he’s been chirped over the comms to sort out his co-commentators with karate chops!

Neil just being Neil. Athar and Neil’s images were grabbed from the commentary camera. The commentators often have a jol with us down in the van with some rather strange sign language and we often give them stick over the comms so it really keeps the day ticking over.

Line of the Dead

Well, well, well. We’ve been here three days now.

Some house keeping. For those that don't know, you can click on any image and it will take you to the high resolution version.

Day one was a travel day and day two we did some rigging. I say some because a lot of the equipment was not here yet! Eish, talk about cutting things fine! Cameras went up at their positions and some testing was done with them. The EVS that I am supposed to be working on is broken and its replacement is on the way from South Africa. This is going to make fitting the new EVS a real pain cause now I have to stay back till late this Wednesday evening, the evening right before we are due to start the first test match. The new EVS needs to be wired in and all logo’s and stings that we need for the show have to be captured.

A couple of us ended up watching the Zimbabwe team practice in the nets. Brian Vitori looks to be one heck of a left arm bowler. Muscle bound and really quick, he looks really mean! The Bangladeshis’ would do well to study THIS video and analyze his action for any clues as to how to face the man. The local newspaper here in Harare had him listed in their team sheet as Brain Vitori. Maybe they know something we don’t? More on the content of these local newspapers in good time.

Zimbabwe is confident of winning this, their first test match back since their exclusion in 2006. We’re all secretly hoping it will happen in three days. Go the Zimbos!

We capped day two off with a crew cricket match on the Harare cricket ground outfield. This sort of thing is really great for crew moral and helps to bond the crew. That’s important because on tours like this you tend to get in each other’s space all the time while under pressure to perform. Over time, tolerance levels are drastically eroded and a good temperament is a prerequisite.

Phillip our satellite operator finally arrived today, Wednesday the 3^rd and rigged his satellite through lunch. Just as well cause there wasn’t enough chow for everyone. Six people missed out on food due to the caterers running out before everyone had been served. Unbelievable!

Carina really doubted my headline in my first post, Zimbabwe Cricket Test Trials and Tribulations. She reckoned that statement was a bit premature as we hadn’t even left South Africa yet. Well, it’s living up to its name now, for sure! At least the OB van hasn’t caught fire, yet.

A fine story from our director during a tour here from 2009 goes something like this.

Due to the shortages in Zimbabwe it was illegal to sell red meat in restaurants and the stuff was even rationed at the butchery. Lo and the OB guys asked about ordering T-bone steaks at this restaurant  and the waitress said they had T-Bone steak but that she could only bring them ’chicken’. All confused the guys looked at each other and eventually when the meal arrived the ‘chicken’, code for T-bone, was completely covered in lettuce to hide it from prying eyes. This all after Lo and the boys won a foot race to get into the restaurant in the first place!

Chatter was nonstop on the bus from the airport to the hotel when we first got here. One of the stories to come out was about a certain retired world renowned blond Australian spin bowler dating a rather world renowned actress, Liz. The interesting thing for me though was that he was using about as much Botox as Liz was!

More good times tomorrow, call time is on site at 07H30 for day one of the first test match. Should be really interesting!

The uplink van in the foreground with its majestic satellite dish next to it beams the images we produce into outer space. Satellites in low orbit bounce these signals back down to earth where broadcasters receive and distribute them to the relevant channels.

Our ‘trusty’ outside broadcast van.

Electricians wiring in a third phase of electricity. This is very late in the evening!

Hurry up and wait.

Shame, poor Z. Athar’s plane only arrived in the wee hours of Tuesday morning and who was there to pick him up? Z of course. What a champion.

Lo our director also flew in late Monday night.

We were smssing Phillip who is the satellite uplink guy and he wasn’t even sure if they were going to get through the border in time before the start of the match on Thursday. As of 3 o’clock Tuesday arvo they were still on the South African side! Who is Andrew going to play golf with?

The other rather sad thing is that people still have very regular electricity cuts leaving the lights off, more than on.

Here are a couple of class stories from our bus journey from the airport to the hotel.

During the first IPL cricket in India a certain production manager who was based in Hyderabad ordered pizzas at lunch time for the crew. The production crew had also just flown in that day to make sure that all was good at the ground. They then left for the hotel leaving the rest of the crew to finish the rig and wait for lunch. And wait they did. Said production manager called pizza parlour to find out where the delivery was and the pizza parlour said the guy was outside waiting at gate 5. Production manager replied that they were also waiting at gate 5 but couldn’t see him anywhere. And so it went, back and forth. Eventually the pizza parlour, out of frustration, blurted out that their guy was at gate 5 at Eden Gardens, Kolcuta. Production manager replies, “Oh s*%, were in Hyderabad.”

One of South Africa’s ex wicket keepers was on a commentary stint the one day. Now when a bowler gets to the top of his run up the PA (production assistant) generally lets everyone know over the comms so that we all know he is about to start his run up. So every time she would say mark as the bowler got to the top of his run up this ex wicket keeper would start looking around wondering why she was calling him every time the bowler got back up to his run up!   

Couple more bus stories tomorrow, for sure!

Athar was definitely not picked up in this stretch Hummer limousine. Can you believe it costs USD 1500,00. to hire this baby per day over the week-end and a measly USD1300,00. per day during the week!

Trevor once quoted a classic. What do you call three cameramen in a line? A whinge tunnel!

Meeting with the grounds man.

These are the cables that get run out, by hand, to each and every camera. Those cables bring the pictures back to the OB van.

A great overview of the Harare cricket ground.

The hallowed pitch getting its due treatment.

This is the commentary area. It’s not quite finished so check back to see the finished product.

How else do you think those amazing graphics get player pictures on them?

Each camera part is in a box. Each box has to be carried to every individual camera position. Sometimes there are over twenty cameras!

The rather pensive blogger.

Adam, on the right with headsets, and some of the crew chilling out after a long rig day.

Harare, here we are!

Well, there’s nothing like getting up at 4:30am to catch a plane.

Johannesburg  wasn’t nearly as cold as I was expecting it to be but the tips of my ears were feeling the chill while we were transferring between planes so I can only imagine how cold it has been there this winter.

As I expected, the chirps began to fly right away. Seems like the dam walls just burst when OB crews get together. Story’s fly left right and centre and it’s hard to keep up, never mind document!

Andrews one chirp was classic and he started the day with a great knock knock joke and it went like this, knock knock? Who’s there? Runnip. Runnip who! This came about from talking about cricket tours to India and Indian food, more specifically dhal.

Starting a day as early as this one leaves my head fuzzy and it showed. When drawing money from the ATM in Johannesburg. I left R400, 00. behind in the jaws of the machine while I went into the bank to query something else. Another bank customer using the ATM after me noticed and came into the bank to let me know but by the time I got back out the money had already been swallowed. Bank says they should credit my account once they ‘balance’ the ATM at the end of the day. I can only pray!

Thankfully my luggage arrived, wasn’t the case (small pun?) last time, and we hit the hotel, today was only a travel day. At least we have electricity and other amenities. Internet in the rooms is woeful but the business centre is, well, the business.

Some interesting stories next time from the airport bus ride to the hotel.

The really huge space at the departure gates in Johannesburg.

My Durban cohort, Andrew.

I am sure Andrew’s shoes are going to invite his pants down for a party sometime soon.

Pete and his fabulous hanky.

 Noticed nice green crop circles on final approach into Harare.

Suppose that means they are growing their own food now?

I’m not sure if many people have noticed this but I sure did awhile back.

The microphone hanging from the ceiling at baggage collections.

What’s that all about?

Air Zimbabwe, thankfully we don’t fly with them, so I’m hoping. We may just though from here to Bulawayo. Z, our producer is not quite sure yet how we’re going to get to Bulawayo. My last flight with Zim air was, hair raising, to say the least. We’ll have to wait and see.

Since independence Zimbabwe has really flourished.