So commentators from every television and radio station crammed into the small break room in the broadcast centre. We can’t risk some spectacular misinterpretation we look to others to confirm a city burning before our eyes. There is a human tendency at events of significance to gather, to legitimise our experience together. It was hard to believe it could have been so obvious. Yet, as obvious as it was, it was hard to believe. It was a confession, signed unwittingly but indelibly. The magician in his haste proved to have no magic at all not the slightest hint of sleight of hand in the way he took a bright yellow square from his pocket, thoroughly unpalmed, and pushed its incriminating colour into hiding. A magician’s fling of the hand, the cord springing out, two ends separating, then trailing, trailing, the smoke coils of downed aircraft. Cut to the close-up, and the super slow-motion capture of the waistband pop: this camera that usually depicts the vibrations in a cricket bat at the moment of impact, or the faintest twitch of glove on ball, was instead capturing 150 frames a second of a drawstring being tugged, frantically enough to turn the slow version into an incongruously extravagant flourish. The second lot of footage hit the screen: the long shot of Bancroft watching the umpires coming together, then turning his back to them. Sandpaper in the jocks, though, was about to cause more discomfort than the immediately physical. He produced the soft black bag for his sunglasses, claiming that was all he had in his pocket. The initial footage was replaying as the umpires moved over to Bancroft. Most apprentice petty thieves don’t have quite the same battery of surveillance devices awaiting their every move. So Bancroft did what any kid shoplifting a Milky Way would do: he shoved the evidence down his pants. Meanwhile, third umpire Ian Gould was watching television monitors and jumping on his own walkie-talkie from up in the grandstand, prompting on-field umpires Richard Illingworth and Nigel Llong to wander over to each other for a chat. The young fieldsman, heart plunging through his shoes, already knew exactly what was going on. Lehmann made a radio call to Handscomb, who trotted on to the field and spoke to Bancroft. The Australians poked their heads into the trap immediately. Then the final ambush: just after Pat Cummins had finished a spell in the 42nd over, the original close-up of Bancroft’s scrubbing hand flashed on to the ground’s big screens. Cameras on the captain, vice-captain, umpires, and half a dozen on Bancroft himself. One for the reserve player, Peter Handscomb, surrounded by discarded pads and gloves down at the side of the field. One for the coach, Darren Lehmann, watching from a Rapunzel window up in the team rooms. What better way than to have the suspect provide it? So they sat on the original footage for a few minutes, setting up the cameras. The fix was on.īut the broadcasters wanted more. You could see the pressure he was applying by the white flush of his knuckles. Bancroft was holding the ball in his left hand, scrubbing his cupped right palm and fingers over the leather as though battling an unforgiving doorknob. “Through this extensive framing latitude, every dramatic on-site sensation can be captured,” is how Canon describes it. Cricket lenses have 76× to 95× zoom, able to shoot from the grandstand to track a single bead of sweat running down a batsman’s face. It was Bancroft they had followed first, tipped off to the possibility of shenanigans and tracking his every movement with or without the ball in hand. There were close to 30 cameras overall, each with a part to play. They were chattering away on their walkie-talkies, coordinating with the other cameras all around the ground. On the gantry outside our window were the three lead Supersport camera operators, adjusting and aiming their artillery-sized lenses, making fine calibrations beyond our understanding. We piled into our commentary box where the ABC and SABC were running a joint broadcast. “Cameron Bancroft has something on the ball.” But as I walked into the broadcast area on the third afternoon of the Cape Town Test in March 2018, he came bouncing round the doorway behind me like a rubber ball, rebounding off the far wall, his face stern as he rushed along. The South African Broadcasting Corporation commentator is small in stature and huge in energy, beaming a high-wattage grin as he booms away in English on the main mics or Xhosa on the update line. Y ou know it’s serious when Mluleki Ntsabo isn’t smiling.
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