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!
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.
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