Camera thieves pick ‘Bones’ clean

BRIDGETOWN: Veteran cricket photographer Colin “Bones” Cumberbatch was a picture of disappointment on Sunday after suffering the theft of more than US $20,000 worth of camera equipment at Kensington Oval.

The dreadlocked Cumberbatch, an Antiguan resident who has covered countless cricket matches in Barbados over the last 20 years, lost two Nikon cameras valued at about US $9,000, four lenses worth about US $8,000 and other equipment including a memory card, a charger, a palm reader and flashes. “I feel completely hollowed and depleted. This is the worst experience of my professional life,” Cumberbatch told the Barbados Nation newspaper. “I can’t work and being self-employed, I have to replace the equipment myself. It will be a tremendous financial burden.”

After taking pictures during the first Cable and Wireless One-Day International between West Indies and Sri Lanka on Saturday evening, Cumberbatch left the equipment at the back of the Peter Short Media Centre on the ground floor just outside the control room of television producers Trans World International (TWI). He went up to the third floor of the media centre where he spent about half-hour, but on returning downstairs, he discovered his bag of equipment was missing. Cumberbatch assumed it was safely stored away by TWI, as had been the case in the past. But when he returned to Kensington yesterday morning, he found the bag without its contents.

Cumberbatch, who has covered West Indies tours of England, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the past, said the equipment was insured, but the coverage was restricted to Antigua only.In spite of the experience, he still held Barbados in high esteem. “I can’t allow the act of one individual to reflect on the honesty of Barbadian people. It’s the one place that I’ve always felt secure about leaving my equipment around.”