300th Test for eager Eagar
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
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The first Test between England and India has had a raft of memorable moments already, but it marks a special milestone for one man in particular: the photographer Patrick Eagar who celebrates his 300th Test match. Mike Atherton, in today's Sunday Telegraph, has a fascinating interview with him in which Eagar looks back at his favourite subjects, and the days of film.
The film needed to be on the lunchtime train to make the first edition, and The Sunday Times had sent a courier (in full livery) who insisted that he needed to leave the ground by 11.30am, the point at which the game was about to start.
Eagar had one over to take his snap for the day, an over faced by Geoff Arnold, who missed all six deliveries. One of them went for four byes, giving Eagar and newspaper readers their Sunday morning image. Even if the communication problems could be overcome, the all-powerful print unions could still cause trouble by refusing to process the film if there weren't two men - one to develop the film, one to put it into the paper - in situ.
A combination, then, of better equipment, better communications and Rupert Murdoch's victory over the print unions has meant that the sports photographer has never had it so good. Only in one respect was the photographer's job easier when Eagar started.
Will Luke is assistant editor of ESPNcricinfo