You're probably aware of this already, but get yourself a DAB radio. TMS is always on 5 Live Sports Extra, and they don't cut away for the shipping forecast or church. There aren't many things that make me happier than sitting in the garden with a few beers, spending a sunny afternoon listening to an England batting collapse. It's nice to catch a bit on Sky when I can be bothered and have time to go to the pub, and a few days at Edgbaston are always great when I can afford it, but my enjoyment and experience of cricket is pretty much inextricably linked with Test Match Special.
Same here fella, been into viewing cricket all mi life until got rid of Sky ararnd 10 years ago and narr I couldn`t name haif of England team tell thi Yorkshire`s last result or owt much abart the game at this moment in time. They priced mi out of Cricket and almost extinguished my interest in the Premier League.
Growing up me Dad wouldnt have a telly in the house cos we were studying for exams. Along with my teacher at Junior School he encouraged me to play football and cricket and started taking me to live matches from around seven and if he took me to the pictures you might see a clip of a Cup Final, Football International, Rugby League Final or a Test Match on Pathe News which was voiced over by Bob Danvers Walker.! I read as many books on Sport as I could and had Subutteo and an FA Cup board game called Wembley. No such thing as Club mascots or chance to train at your local Club I had Sky Sports for around 10 years but packed it in when I retired mainly due to cost. With Virgin TV and all its programmes, landline and broadband I was paying £125 every month so something had to go.!! Kids today have so many things they can do. They can still play live sport and watch any sport imaginable on TV, phones, iPads and tablets. Spent a couple of hours with my 8 year old grandson today. He was playing FIFA 17 on the families wide screen TV. He was Spain. He kept breaking off to instruct Alexa to play a different tune. Telling me his Dad is going to contact Barnsley to pay for him to be a mascot at one of our games next season and enquire if the scheme they operated last season where you could go along on match day receive soccer skills training in the morning have some snap and a ticket for the game in the afternoon is being run next season. The main reason people are not attending footy/ Cricket games or watching them on Sky is in my opinion purely down to cost. As far as kids are concerned they have such a wide choice these days . My three lads were brought up in a house steeped in Cricket and Football . Through watching Sky whilst they were at home one is only interested in Rugby Union ,one is only interested WWF Wrestling and from age 12 one has been the length and breadth with me watching the Reds. His lad ( my grandson) now joins us. During our losing streak under the Pygmy ( now at Bristol) he said to me at half time at one game " grandad we start going to see a team that wins." ? When I asked who, he said " Barcelona".!! After the JPT Final and promotion thank God he never mentioned it again.!
South Africa were cracking in the last few overs. England really should have been closer to 200, if not more.
Looks a cracking little player, and showed he has some ******** even when being smashed about by one the great white ball batsmen. The lad needs to play as many games as he can before gradually introducing him to the Test side, and we may have another world class spinner on our hands...
Very good! I don't think I've ever seen him play First Class cricket, but he looks like he has the ability to be Anderson's natural successor.
I still want to know why anybody thought it was a good idea to show somebody operating a screen with effects on it. Is the pinnacle of technology really us watching a 4k 50inch TV only to be find out we are actually watching a TV screen in a room which is being filmed by another camera. No offence to whitey but it's the kind of technology is expect bfc's media team to use with a limited budget. Can't afford proper graphics so they'd show whitey operating a laptop in the background. And zoom in on its screen. Who the **** thought that was the way to showcase the fact that they could slow down replays rather than using the whole chuffing screen and slowing them down. We don't need to see Gary Neville's dirty little hands touching a touch screen, we don't care how you get that on the screen frankly. Imagine a new marvel superheroes movie where they zoom out and show a graphics technician applying the special effects for iron man's suit
Just resurrecting this thread to let you know that the BBC has agreed a comprehensive 5-year rights deal with English cricket across TV, radio and digital platforms. They will be the exclusive free-to-air home of cricket in the UK from 2020 to 2024. Live cricket will be back on BBC TV for the first time in 21 years, including live TV coverage of 2 of England men’s international T20 matches, 1 England women’s T20 international plus live TV coverage of 10 men’s matches from the ECB’s new T20 tournament and up to 8 live matches from the women’s T20 tournament. They will also broadcast primetime TV highlights of England men’s home international matches. TMS has also extended its rights. Okay, it's not full five-day test match coverage, but it's a start....
Okay. A bit to wait but we'll see what they are going to do. Hope it's more than the cricket. Analysis got to be on point....
It's brilliant news it been on BBC Micky Finn but I hope it's not going to be half-hearted. Even the sky commentators would agree with that i'd imagine. http://www.skysports.com/cricket/ne...r-participation-and-growth-says-mike-atherton That's what Sky have got. Looks to be a massive uplift in the income to the ECB through International and Domestic deals. Expect the Counties and players to rightfully want more.
But as has been outlined in this thread already, pay-tv money undoubtedly makes the game richer but slowly strangles it at the same time. Same thing happened when the (then) 5-Nations rugby went briefly to pay-tv. The RFU was awash with cash, but take-up of the sport at U18 level & below fell by almost 70%. They realised their mistake and it hasn't been back since. I'm not bashing Sky - their coverage is expansive & innovative and with the dedicated channels at their disposal, they can afford it the on-air time it gets. But relatively few people are watching. The BBC's Champions Trophy highlights shows earlier this month comfortably drew bigger audiences than Sky's live coverage of the same games. Investing in grass-roots cricket is one thing, but limiting exposure of the sport at top level to those with £££ seems at odds to that. It certainly won't be half-hearted - I remember exactly the moment when we lost live cricket 21 years ago, and it wasn't a happy time. Huge BSkyB money and some complacency in our bid and, well, you know the rest... Sky will still have the tests, and the lions' share of the one-day stuff, but it will be nice to have some decent, live cricket on free-to-air TV again. We will give it our all, but remember there's no dedicated BBC Sport channel, so you might not get dedicated lunch-break discussions or spin masterclasses! That's what TMS is for....
I look at this and think T/20's perfect. It's very hard like you say for TV channels to give up 10 hour slots without upsetting a lot of people. T/20's a 3 hour slot normally and it's a bit of fun for a lot of people. I know when the World cups on and some are missing Emmerdale and coronation street the tounges are wagging
You say it won't be half arsed, but like you say the BBC have just had highlights of the Champions Trophy and put the highlights on at stupid times, at least channel 5 get their highlights on at 7. I really hope they put some proper effort into this to make it a massive success which it could well be. The deal is good for cricket, no free to air channel will give test cricket the air time it needs so it needs to stay with Sky really but T20 is ideal for broadcasters. It's also how kids these days are going to get into cricket, they'll start with T20 then get into tests rather than the other way round.