PUSHING BOUNDARIES

Nasser Hussain and Stuart Broad tell Harry Latham-Coyle how Sky Sports Cricket changed the game in an exclusive look behind the scenes at their pace-setting Test coverage

- Harry Latham-Coyle

Perched beneath an open flap on the side of the lorry, the beckoning wave of the happy cats immediately draws the These golden knick-knacks, known as maneki-neko, are supposed to bring good luck and fortune to those who possess them, but here, amidst a sprawl of cables, cabins and a whirring generator, they serve a different purpose.

It is day two of the one-off Test between England and Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge and The Independent has been granted a rare look behind the scenes with Sky Sports' award-winning cricket team. For close to two decades, the broadcaster has served as the ECB's primary partner, showing every home international and much, much more besides. This is one of 166 match days to be covered across 129 actual slots on the calendar this summer; it is a hectic time.

Back to the cats, then, which are used each morning to sync up the slo-mo cameras - a minor part of what is, as almost goes without saying, an extraordinary operation. For the Zimbabwe Test, the sprawl of trucks and trailers fills an empty space alongside the ground; for a Hundred game, with the BBC also in town, the broadcasters will also commandeer a pub car park.

Three cameras and their accompanying operators generally sit on the gantry at either end, each serving a different purpose behind the bowler's arm. The rest are dotted around the outfield, providing different perspectives, all overseen by a team of producers, directors and wider personnel. Where once this was done on-site, most is now done at the broadcaster's base in Osterley. To assist with the ease of coverage, cabling is placed at each ground at Worcestershire's New Road, prone to flooding in winter, this must be removed regularly and re-laid before the start of each summer. Innovations like the Sky cart-wheeled out for analysis - and T20 commentary pod are added to this on occasion, creating a different feel beyond the slightly staid studio set-up that characterised cricket coverage for years.