Neal Collins The very first helmet camera to hit British television screens belonged to Richard Johnson, a Grand National jockey, in 1998. Sadly, Johnson, riding a horse called Banjo, fell at the first fence. Though it was a spectacular crash where we saw turf, fence, sky and turf again, we were given no further glimpses of the action from the expensive gizmo. The helmet-cam and Johnson went no further, though Banjo gamely completed the course, riderless. Luckily, cricketers don’t have to negotiate fences. The world’s most conservative sport took only a couple of years to follow racing’s lead, spending 12E000 to develop a gadget that will give viewers a parrot- on-the-shoulder’s view of how Graeme Hick manages to get out so often, so quickly and for so few. Actually there was an earlier development. In 1993 Phil DeFreitas came out to bat with a miner’s helmet against New South Wales when he felt the light was failing. In truth, the helmet-cam adopted by this summer is much like a miner’s helmet to look at, though it has a transmitter and an aerial in it. An early helmet camera was worn by Mark Nicholas, the former Hampshire captain, now front man for Channel 4, during a televised benefit match between a World XI and Warwickshire at Edgbaston four years ago. Sadly Nicholas, who wasn’t riding Banjo, let everyone down by getting out for a golden duck. Today’s helmet cam is worn by Murray Goodwin and Hick at short leg – no batsman has been permitted to wear it yet – but it promises to further the revolution in cricket.
Already letters have appeared in the papers in England, complaining about these hi-tech developments, including Sky’s moving camera, which runs along the side of the pitch and the proposal to wire up the third umpire to hear his reasons behind those strange run-out decisions. According to Charlie Flindt, from Arlesford, in his letter to the The Times: “We know that Channel 4 and Sky have got cameras that can count a bowler’s nosehairs. We know that they can spot a loose stitch on the ball as it rolls across the outfield. We’re all amazed at the way a scratch on a batman’s helmet can be analysed minutely. “But all we want, at the moment of delivery, is a nice motionless camera showing a moving ball against a stationary pitch. Save all the migraine-inducing wobblycam nonsense for the replays; when the ball is bowled, we want a rock-steady picture featuring the bowler’s torso, the batsman, the keeper and one or two slips – maybe three with wide-screen broadcasting. It would make watching what little cricket there is on terrestrial television so much easier.”
All in all, the traditionalists are taking a hammering during the triangular series which ends with the final between Zimbabwe and England or the West Indies this weekend.
Black wickets, white balls, dark sightscreens, umpires in fawn jackets – and then there’s the music. From Great Balls of Fire (a raunchy explanation of why Darren Gough walks with a John Wayne swagger) to Blinded by the Light (played whenever Brian Lara bats without shades). Though the men with ties have apoplexies, those with brains quite like the changes.