Riots Jeopardise Cricket Coverage

Television coverage of the rest of England's cricket tour to India could be jeopardised after rioters did an estimated £100,000 of damage to camera equipment when the last one-day match was abandoned.

Crowds rioted after the umpires abandoned yesterday's match in Guwahati before a ball was bowled, because the ground was waterlogged.

One specialist Hawkeye camera was dismantled and dumped on a bonfire while another camera used to adjudicate run-outs was wrecked by stones and other missiles.

Hawkeye, which is used to review LBW decisions, was credited with helping to revolutionise TV coverage of cricket when it was introduced by Channel 4 nearly a decade ago.

"Hawkeye will definitely be affected for the next game as we have to get replacements from England," said James Rego, the executive producer at rights holder Nimbus.

"We are just in the process of assessing the damage. As the cameras are taken down and our engineers inspect them, we will have a fair idea of how bad the situation is," Mr Rego told the cricinfo.com website.

"At the moment, I can tell you that at least four cameras have been badly damaged. The damage is likely to be in the region of hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is a total security disaster."

Trouble erupted in some parts of the ground after umpires called off the game because of safety concerns.

Bonfires were lit and missiles were thrown onto the pitch. Some members of the crowd then began to target TV cameras.

But while some equipment could be moved to safety, ground staff were unable to move two fixed cameras used to judge run-outs.

If replacements cannot be found, the next scheduled one day match between England and India may not be able to go ahead because of International Cricket Council regulations.

England have already lost the one-day series, 4-0. Yesterday's game was due to have been the fifth out of seven scheduled fixtures. The earlier Test series between England and India was drawn 1-1.

Both the Test and one-day matches have been shown live in the UK on Sky Sports.