Cricket Coverage - what does it lack, and what can be better?

We've had plenty of gripes about the way cricket is covered on the media. The writing is often substandard, the commentary is crap, the people on the radio don't know what they're talking about and the statistics at our disposal are incomplete and underwhelming.

Not only that, but it's ridiculously hard for most people to watch most of the cricket that is happening - channels are region blocked, Willow.TV is expensive and unreliable, and once the cricket is done you're only left with 'official' 2 minute long highlight packages produced by boards/TV channels. If you're lucky youtube compilations that are a bit longer instead.

What do you think cricket can do better to make it an easier, and more enjoyable sport to follow? What changes would you like to see as a fan?


For me, I've got a few:

> More online cricket ********* services, that keep the entire footage on the server so that you can watch entire passages of play after the fact.
> Specialist cricket analysts doing media/TV commentary - I want to hear more about the bowling strategies being utilised and the batsman's technique, and less banter about the good old days from former players.
> Bring back the old https://www.cricingif.com/ - these guys used to have a gif of every ball in the match. It was such a brilliant tool for analysis/meme making.
> More stats/information in cricket broadcasting - I love how the MLB broadcast has stats all over the page. Cricket could do that. Imagine watching a game and having the field placements, local time, overs left, weather details, and overs bowled per bowler all on display simultaneously. Would take some work to make it not very cluttered, but it's doable.

There are a lot of opportunities but given how the boards operate and what their priorities are, I don't expect any major changes anytime soon. The first thing to change has to be the embracing of the Internet. Netflix changed the TV/Movie entertainment model and what that did was make big players like Sky/Fox even more rigid in their sports broadcast because that's all they had to compete against Netflix/Amazon - Live Sports.

But that has to change now towards a Netflix like subscription model where you pay a monthly fee and basically have access to all the international cricket in the world. Problem is that there isn't a player like that. Willow is probably the one that comes closest but not sure if they can negotiate with all the different broadcasters and have access to all the series globally.

This is the first thing that Cricket needs to focus on which I think will fix a lot of other problems where we have the clowns at C9 boasting how they haven't seen a certain overseas player or know nothing about a guy with 40 tests because they have never seen him play yet.

I feel like Cricinfo, because they are backed by ESPN ( a sports broadcaster) could have really ventured into this

Talking about coverage,I must point out about the U19 WC.Tomorrow is an important day for Pakistan and SL because it is the virtual knockout and all eyes will be on that game but hang on where are we going to watch that match? Because the sell out ICC is showing Zimbabwe vs India on TV and not the match of two major teams of cricket.Why do they show PNG vs India on TV but none of Pakistan or SL group games? and the highlights on ICC's website is so short that in India vs Australia match they just showed the wickets in the match highlights package because they had to finish the video with in 5 minutes.

Regarding specialist cricket analysis, I think we need to look beyond 'former cricket = automatic qualification to be a commentator/analyst'. There are a number of problems with this - firstly a large number of former cricketers are generally not very analytical, well informed or genuinely interested in reading up, learning and keep up to date about the game. They have had their careers and they give the impression that they don't have the same level of interest or eagerness anymore and they don't think there is anything new for them to learn.

I mean if you look at Ian Chappell, all his analysis and opinions are either based on when he used to play or the contemporary cricket of India, Australia and England. That's because neither does he watch any cricket outside of that, nor does he bother to keep himself informed. So he won't be aware of what's happening in the rest of the world nor would be able to make an analysis or references that takes cricket outside of his cocoon into consideration.

This is human nature and I don't think men past their 50s can be made to realize that this game is always changing and there is always something new and worthwhile to learn and read up on. There are exceptions of course - Ian Bishop, Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton are great examples of men who have retired a long time ago but take a keen interest in cricket today and keep themselves very well informed with all teams and players, not just their own. As a result they are able to provide interesting perspectives and insights and are able to engage the audience.

I learn more about the game from reading Cricket writers and journalists. And this is what Cricket has - it has the best writers. Cricket lends itself beautifully to the literary world with the ebbs and flows of it's narratives. Some of the best writers on cricket today have had books published. Why don't we use their expertise? Fazeer Mohammad is a cricket writer in the West Indies and occasionally he engages in commentary as well and it's great. He is very well informed, as a journalist, he has a habit of doing research and he can always provide a background on a new player unlike a Rameez Raja who would introduce Fakhar in Champions Trophy as an 'unknown entity'

We need to get out of the idea that you need to have played cricket in order to be a good commentator. Rubbish.

In my country the entire sport is paywalled and consequentially about as popular as tiddlywinks.

I'd love to see cricket offer ********* options on mobile for a monthly fee or something. Most other sports have mobile subscription options to watch games on the go or if they don't have access to them.

S.Kennedy said:

In my country the entire sport is paywalled and consequentially about as popular as tiddlywinks.

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Yeah well it's not going to be free though. Sky Sports provides quality coverage and creates incredible programs to go with the cricket such as Masterclasses, Documentaries like Rainbow Nation and Pace Like Fire. It's not going to be for free.

Some amount of cricket has to be free though. Every other sport on their planet makes some of it accessible for free to anyone who wants to watch.

You barely get adequate cricket highlight packages for free. It's ridiculous. What would major cricket boards and broadcasters lose out by uploading high quality 20-30 minute highlight packages of past games onto a site like Youtube for all to see? What would they lose by broadcasting domestic games on free to air TV?

A lot of domestic games around the world is not broadcasted at all. It costs money to broadcast that and there is no motivation for them to incur those costs and then have it air for free. They're unlikely to even attract much sponsorship or ad revenue from it on Free to Air TV.

The only way they can do it is if they can sell it as a package along with international cricket.

I feel a lot of the broadcasting costs are because cricket boards/tournament organisers are outsourcing to third parties with expensive equipment, camera crews, etc.

If a decent camera was just affixed at each end of the ground and just the footage was streamed online next to a running live scoreboard, the costs would be minimal and it would be a super easy way for people to watch certain domestic cricketers they want to see. Then you have the beautiful souls like Kippax who will use that footage to compile their own little player highlight reel that helps analyse their game

Black_Warrior said:

Yeah well it's not going to be free though. Sky Sports provides quality coverage and creates incredible programs to go with the cricket such as Masterclasses, Documentaries like Rainbow Nation and Pace Like Fire. It's not going to be for free.

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I disagree. Australia provides terrestrial coverage. I believe it is safeguarded as a national sport. It is only England where we are told we cannot have it but through subscription.

Who cares really, as long as illegal rivers exist.

My life has improved exponentially since I found some full HD links on <unreturned serve in tennis><river>.

Here is another thing that massively needs to be improved in cricket coverage - the journalism

4 days you get to sit and watch a Test match unfold in front of you. 22 players batting and bowling and fielding. Hundreds of overs of crickets. Runs scored, wickets taken, runouts, techniques examined, strategies employed, some chat between the players.

You see all that and you get into a press conference and you get to ask Virat Kohli a question, and you start by asking "Do you guys still think you're the best team in the world?"


Just **** off with that. Seriously. Raise your game journalists.

vcs said:

Who cares really, as long as illegal rivers exist.

My life has improved exponentially since I found some full HD links on <unreturned serve in tennis><river>.

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Just downloaded this. Thanks for the heads up. So this is the best way to do it then?

Aritro said:

Just downloaded this. Thanks for the heads up. So this is the best way to do it then?

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Yes. Keep looking at reddit's cricket forum where they post the links.

Cricket coverage would be greatly improved by not having Kevin Pietersen involved at any level.

vcs said:

Yes. Keep looking at reddit's cricket forum where they post the links.

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Thanks mate.

Less former players involved would be better. Well trained callers of the game and (independent) journalists would a lot too

Its so frustrating finding streams to watch matches overseas. I would be happy to pay for a subscription service

You have two paywalling companies now in England with the arrival of BT.