Commenting on twitter about the first Cricket World Cup Semi Final between India and New Zealand, the Editor of the New Statesman Jason Cowley tweeted:
A cricket World Cup semi-final was played today in England but hardly anyone cares. The English Cricket Board – in all its greed and myopia – has failed to create a national moment. It had years to prepare for the tournament and has blown it.
Today England are playing Australia in the second semi-final at Edgbaston. It is available on Sky subscription where it will probably be seen by a million or so people (11 million watched the Women’s World Cup Semi-Final which was free to air on the BBC)
Interviewed by Jonathan Agnew on Test Match Special on Tuesday the outgoing Head of the ICC (which organises the World Cup) Dave Richardson noted that the ICC has contracted the TV broadcasting rights to Star who then sub-contract across the world. In the UK’s case Sky have the contract and have the decision on whether to make matches free to air.
Richardson noted that in some countries such as Australia legislation requires matches featuring the home team to be free to air while in India Star itself allows games to be shown on a free to air channel. Not in the UK.
In this case the ECB who run cricket in England and Wales have had the responsibility of organising the detail of the World Cup within the ICC’s framework. One might think however that in order to publicise it in the wider interests of cricket they might have had a word with Sky which has the contract for domestic cricket on TV from them. Perhaps they did.
In the meantime the always professional and entertaining Test Match Special at least keeps the majority of cricket fans uptodate on events
Leave a Reply