England airport incident with cameraman ‘not ideal’

An incident between a member of England’s security staff and a TV cameraman “wasn’t ideal”, according to Brendon McCullum.

Australian network Seven accused the member of the tourists’ backroom staff of a physical confrontation following Saturday’s events at Brisbane Airport.

As England prepared to board a flight to Adelaide, the altercation was filmed and later broadcast on Seven’s TV and social channels.

“Hopefully it’s been dealt with and everyone’s able to move on,” said England head coach McCullum.

“I didn’t see it. I don’t know to what level it was. We have a security team that is trying to protect the players. I don’t know where on the line that sat.”

The back-and-forth at Brisbane Airport came at the end of England’s break in the Queensland beach town of Noosa, where they were regularly captured on camera, including by Seven.

The coverage followed a pattern of intense media scrutiny that has followed England around Australia.

Cricket Australia has previously issued reminders to all media that teams will not be available for interview in transit through airports, and all images should be captured from a respectful distance.

Speaking on Sunday, McCullum said: “You know when you come to Australia, there’s a lot of eyeballs. There’s a lot of intensity and scrutiny on everything you do.

“I feel like we’ve managed ourselves pretty well throughout this tour. I thought the boys were outstanding over the last week we’ve had in Noosa.

“They’ve been engaging with a lot of locals and everyone was in good spirits. There was some good banter flying both ways and I think everyone treated that with the respect it deserved.”

Players being filmed in airports is a regular occurrence in Australia.

Last year, India star Virat Kohli took exception to being recorded at Melbourne Airport.

And Australia all-rounder Cameron Green said he had “sympathy” for the situation England find themselves in.

“You never like getting filmed, especially when you want to get away from it,” said Green.

“There’s always sympathy for anyone in life that’s getting filmed in public or in a private space. It’s never a nice feeling.

“That’s the expectation as a cricketer for Australia or England, you’re probably going have a fair amount of media scrutiny.