Nasser Hussain and I filming on the KFC Skybox during the 5th test at the SCG. Nasser is not a fan of heights!
This was my third consecutive Ashes for Sky Sports News and I really enjoyed this series. England came over after winning a home series only a few months before hand and were dead set favorites to retain the urn.
England had unforeseen circumstance on the horizon which proved massive for them. Jonathan Trott leaving the tour and heading back to the UK. Graeme Swann retired before the Boxing day Test unable to go on with an elbow injury. Matt Prior replaced by Jonny Bairstow due to form and well… Mitchell Johnston.
I started the Ashes series tour for Sky Sports News and the lead up was great, lots of press conference and interviews with past and present players. This is one of the best things about working on a tour like this you get to hear first hand who is going to win or lose.
A week out from the first test I went over to work for BskyB Uk crew, who I haven’t worked with before. This was a little daunting as I knew everyone from working side by side with Sky Sports News but I wasn’t entirely sure of the make up or how the Outside Broadcast side of things operated. I hadn’t worked on a big sporting event with an OB crew before. OB’s are very different as there are a lot more people on the ground where as in news it’s a small crew of camera, journo and producer. This took some time in getting used to, not really sure of who was who or what they really did.
In the end I had a blast working with the OB, we shot some great content and had loads of fun experiences. Went shark diving with Bumble, Nasser and Wardy at Port Lincoln. Fishing with Mark ‘tubby’ Taylor and Bumble, where I lost a remote control chopper in Sydney Harbor, got my camera a little wet by a freak wave or bad driving from Tubby. To top it off when we got back to land I had a parking ticket on the window of the car!
After the 5 to zip test win to Australia, I went back to SSN for the ODI series and this is where we first heard that KP and the England team weren’t getting along. We did hear rumblings when Swanny retired but he confirmed that comments mentioned were more about international players outside England’s sheds.
Also what was starting to appear bigger than the cracks on the WACA wicket was that Captain Alastair Cook didn’t know if he was coming or going at the end of that Aussie summer. Nearly every press conference was about should he or is he going to hand down his captaincy. I did feel sorry for Cook, he is a nice bloke and what ever he did out on the ground went wrong.
It was a fun summer in the end and cant wait for the Cricket World Cup here in Aust/Nz in 2015.