There have long been many stories of cameras and camera personnel interfering with sports, even with many of those incidents disputed. One that would be pretty hard to dispute is what happened in a South Africa – Australia cricket match Monday, though. There, Fox Cricket’s “Flying Fox” wire camera crashed into South Africa’s Anrich Nortje:
https://twitter.com/arimansfield/status/1607580830741975040
After that collision, Nortje had some notable comments to ESPN’s Alex Malcolm:
“I didn’t know what hit me, to be honest,” Nortje said. “So far so good. It just knocked the [left] shoulder and the [left] elbow. The elbow is a bit sore but otherwise seems to be okay. I’ll just monitor it and see how it goes with the [doctor].
“I saw cables and then I turned around or moved my head and then I saw the camera, but I was a little bit too late. It was quite quick. It didn’t really change my mindset or anything. I tried to stay focused.
“I think the one thing we’ve spoken about earlier is how low it is and it probably shouldn’t be unless [it needs to be] for certain interviews or something. But I don’t think it should be travelling head height. That’s just my opinion. And then for Marco [Jansen] as well, they must take him into consideration [for his height].”
Malcolm also added that Fox apologized and noted that they would take measures to prevent this from happening again. So this isn’t necessarily an ongoing issue. But it was certainly an odd moment in Monday’s match.
[Mediaite, ESPN; photo from Ari Mansfield on Twitter]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.