England's captain Alastair Cook in action ahead of the Ashes (via ECB)
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has struck a deal with YouTube to live stream upcoming matches in areas where there is no broadcast coverage.
Live cricket coverage on the official ECB YouTube channel starts Wednesday, 10 July, on day one of the Investec Ashes Test Series between England and Australia.
As well as live streams of the matches, the channel will also host one-minute highlights of every session. This content will be made available in 53 countries across mainland Europe and South America in order to spread the reach of the sport.
“This is the ECB’s first venture into live streaming of cricket online, so is ground-breaking territory for us,” said ECB chief executive David Collier. “We receive numerous requests from cricket fans in regions where there is no broadcast TV offering, and therefore we are delighted that many will be able to enjoy this Investec Ashes Series.”
Expansion of the game
As well as the Investec Ashes Series, the YouTube channel will have highlights of every Investec Test, NatWest ODI Series and International T20, the LV= County Championship and the Yorkshire Bank 40 matches, plus behind-the-scenes features and player interviews.
“It is also important that we play a role in the expansion of the game to countries that do not traditionally play nor watch the sport,” added Collier.
The Ashes Event Centre from Sky
This year’s Ashes also comes with ball-by-ball coverage from Sky Sports through a new Ashes Event Centre from the Sky Sports app for the iPad.
This is Sky’s first-ever second screen experience for cricket and lets users watch live coverage, check an integrated timeline of session-by-session highlights, view in-running match statistics and make use of interactive Hawk-Eye analysis tools.
