Three Cities, One Destination.

It's amazing how you can wake up in the morning in Durban, wash your face, have breakfast and be on a plane at 08h40 to Johannesburg and end up in your hotel room by about 10am.

In case of an emergency, which exit should I use? Left or right, left or right, left or right...

A bumpy flight on the way up to JHB on Friday morning with quite a few 'weightless' moments in the approach to ORT. The guy in the seat next to me was gripping his armrests extra tight, just in case the emergency exit door blew open and tried to suck him out.

The hotel check in at Barbara road City Lodge was no mess, no fuss and I was impressed that they allowed such an early check in. Not all rooms are created equal.

Neither are all stadiums. Call time at the Willomore Park stadium in Benoni was 13h00. Back at the hotel by 23h00 so all good in the hood.

Saturday morning, us jetsetters flew on down to Cape Town on the 09h00. We checked into the City Lodge at the Grand West Casino with call time at Newlands for the Stormers vs Hurricanes game, 13h00.

I was nervous as hell working on this game as it was my first rugby game of the season. Twenty minutes into our half hour build up, the entire ob van tripped. Off air we go. It's amazing that in a multi-million rand van it's still a basic thing like power that can rule the roost. Thankfully this was the only hiccup of the day. The de-rig was fairly painless and we were back at the hotel by 22h30.

We stayed on in Cape Town to cover the T20 game between the Dolphins and the Cobras in Paarl on Sunday. Go the Dolphins!

With near 40 degree, temperatures being a cameraman is dangerous work!

Cameraman Alex Grist has the evidence to prove it and to those of you who think skin cancer is a myth check out the before and after pictures posted. Bear in mind this is the second dig at getting cancer out of his system. The first go was on his face and shoulder. We wish you luck big fella.

So three cities later I have only one final destination, home.

X-PLORING

What a great way to spend an hour of your morning!

We left at 06h00 this fine morning, 21st February.
Objective, to discover a warm water left hand reef break.
Mission, get there by any means possible in our Nissan X-Trail.

Obstacle, the only patch of beach sand on the entire sugar cane farm which happened to bog us down!

We armed ourselves with sticks and boy, did we show that beach sand!

Are we there yet?

You said you wanted which oil?

Kev, you can come out, all the hard work is done!

Victorious at last! Check that mound of sand! The one I'm standing on isn't to bad either.

South Africa vs Australia

Well here we are again. South Africa vs Australia and we’re one game apiece in the ODI’s so far. Tension is mounting and hopefully South Africa can pull a rabbit out the hat. Weather is not predicted to be good for the final ODI confrontation in my home town, Durban, and it has been raining since Monday evening and is predicted to continue on until match day, Friday.

Port Elizabeth was the scene for the second ODI which leveled the score 1-1 and it’s also a town I love going to. It is a clean and friendly city and visiting PE offers us the opportunity to eat at the Fish Finder and it’s also in striking distance of Jeffreys Bay, a world renowned surf spot.

Our Vt Co-ord, JVT, miss-placed his spectacles and couldn’t find them for the match day. Strange thing that, how do you find your spectacles if you can’t see without them? They eventually turned up in the place where they first looked. Check out THIS video of the Andre, J VT and myself in action during the Port Elizabeth ODI.

Another fine example of Port Elizabeth’s beauty is THIS short time lapse of the beachfront. I love the little burst of light towards the end of the video.

One half of the VT work area

My work station

Andre at his work station

Jeff, the guy on the right, hard at work while waiting for a flight. An all to common sight this.

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.