Nimbus Sport, broadcast rights holders for BCCI-conducted ties upto March 31, 2010, has asked the Indian Cricket Board to provide improved facilities for its crew at the venues.
MUMBAI: Nimbus Sport, broadcast rights holders for BCCI-conducted ties upto March 31, 2010, has asked the Indian Cricket Board to provide improved facilities for its crew at the venues hosting India's home Test series against Australia and Test and ODI rubbers against England.
In a letter to BCCI Secretary Niranjan Shah, the channel has pointed out difficulties experienced by its crew in the past, while covering matches at some of the venues that have been earmarked for the two series, because of lack of proper facilities.
It wanted the BCCI to address the infrastructure issues "to facilitate better coverage of the matches" to be held later this year.
The complaints range from TV crew's access to the control rooms, small sizes of the control rooms and commentators' box sizes and water dripping from air conditioners to heights and positions of camera platforms, lack of enough toilets and leaking sewage pipes at some centres.
There are some harsh comments about some of the centres. For example in Guwahati, the centre which is to play host to one of seven ODIs against England, TV control room was "non-existent".
The letter has also raised the issue of a sewage pipe above the control room in Guwahati of having got choked last time which "started leaking all over the control room and live power cables" that made it difficult to work "in an inhuman" and "very dangerous condition".
The letter stated that in the last match at Jamshedpur the control room was on the first floor, "which is absolutely unacceptable", adding that it was "impossible to carry" 15 tons of equipment up to the first floor "considering the limited time available".
The position of the commentators' box at Jamshedpur has also been criticised with the letter saying that it was "one of the worst positioned commentary boxes just peeping over the sight screen. Due to this, about 30 per cent of the ground is not visible. Alternate commentary box with a complete view of the ground is a must".
All the centres that are to host matches, barring Nagpur which is to conduct the Test against Australia at its new stadium, have come in for minor or major criticism by the broadcast rights holders for providing below-par facilities for TV crew members.
The centres covered in the letter are: Bangalore, Mohali, Nagpur, Delhi, Rajkot, Indore, Kanpur, Guwahati, Cuttack, Jamshedpur, Ahmedabad and Mumbai (Cricket Club of India).
The letter has also asked the BCCI to ensure that all the venues have four towers "for installation of the 4 hi-speed cameras for ball tracking", as "this will be a first time for some of the venues to have a ball tracking technology".
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