By Andrew Alderson at Hagley Oval

The start to the third day of the first cricket test between England and New Zealand has been sullied by the alleged theft of camera equipment from the commentary box of visiting broadcasters Talksport.

The crime is understood to have occurred overnight at the Hagley Oval ground, and was discovered upon arrival this morning.

Talksport cricket editor Jon Norman released a video talking about the incident on social media with former test bowler and fellow commentator Steve Harmison.

Norman said it was a sour note to start the day.

“We’ve had a break-in. We’ve lost our cameras and we won’t be able to broadcast via the Talksport cricket Youtube channel today. There will be audio but no pictures.

“We’ve had nothing but hospitality the customary New Zealand way all week, but sadly this is bad news to wake up to.”

Harmison added: “We’ve come here this morning, walked across the field, bounced over thinking it’d be another brilliant day of test cricket, filling the audience hopefully with excitement and joy, but unfortunately there’s nothing we can do about it.

“It’s out of our control that we can’t bring you pictures from this great venue.”

He hadn’t lost his sense of humour though, after New Zealand dropped six catches on the second day which saw England reach 319 for five, 29 runs in arrears.

“Can I make the joke that we wish that the New Zealand lads had taken the cameras because they might have dropped them by the nets.”

Norman added: “If you see two cameras in the Christchurch area, they’re [probably] ours.”