The National Breast Cancer Foundation has accused cricket commentator Ian Healy of being flippant and silly after being caught on camera mimicking a violin player while interviewing Andrew Symonds about fundraising for the disease.
General manager Sue Murray said it had been flooded with emails and phone calls of complaint — but insisted that Healy should not be punished. “It was silly and I think he will be bitterly disappointed in himself,” she said. “The community’s response will be sufficient retribution for Ian.”
Symonds and opening batsman Matthew Hayden had been using a pink-handled bat in a deal with their sponsor to raise funds and promote breast cancer awareness.
“I was winding Andrew up to talk about this pink grip,” Healy said. “We’ve got these massive big blokes using pink bats and that was a wind-up. And as he got into his promotion of the scheme, I did the air violin — as they’re calling it now.
“People have perceived that as me mocking breast cancer research but no one would mock breast cancer research.”
Later in the broadcast, Healy talked about breast cancer research, saying it was “of course so close to everyone’s heart”. After the incident was exposed, Healy apologised, saying it was only meant to be a bit of fun. A Nine spokesman said it had accepted Healy’s apology and would “leave it at that”.
