Cricket: The plot to put Sonny in the shade

New Zealand spectator Sonny Shaw (bottom right) waves the national flag in front of an area roped off by security in an attempt to keep him out of view of television cameras. Picture / Reuters

Never mind the cricket, an even sillier game was taking place on the Basin Reserve embankment yesterday as New Zealand Cricket and Sky Television attempted to ban long-time supporter Sonny Shaw from standing in camera shot.

Evidently viewed as an irritant by both organisations, the flag-waving, sometimes stripped-to-the waist Shaw found his favourite viewing area near the sightscreen roped off yesterday and excluded from public use.

The move apparently followed a request yesterday from Sky Television to NZC, and resulted in a strange 8m x 4m exclusion zone at the Adelaide End of the ground.

Shaw, who has followed the New Zealanders throughout the world for test and one-day fixtures, was in the news four years ago after a scuffle outside a Courtenay Place bar with All Black hardman Jerry Collins.

At the time he told reporters that he also had a violent past and that Collins could learn something from him.

Shaw said security had approached him yesterday and had told him he couldn't go into the roped-off area.

"I've been having a running battle with them," Shaw said. "I don't think they liked it when I took my shirt off yesterday."

NZC match manager Tim Murdoch said his organisation had arranged to rope off the area at the request of Sky Television.

Sky's cricket producer James Cameron said the order came from a cameraman. "It was to create a cleaner shot. It frustrates the camera guys that Sonny Shaw goes out of his way to get into the shots."