The Roar
The Roar

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Where's all the cricket coverage?

You're great, Afghanistan, and you tell good stories, but we want the same old boring dribble.
Roar Rookie
3rd March, 2015
14

Your reaction to receiving the information that your country will be hosting the Cricket World Cup should be complete and utter joy, right?

It should mean countless hours of cricket, news of it all over the country, back-page articles almost everyday, replay upon replay available on television, matches from all over the land bellowing on the radio, and the host side playing meaningful matches regularly.

In short, World Cup fever taking over the land and all before it.

Right?

Wrong.

My opinion of this World Cup is the lowest I have had of the tournament since I began to follow cricket as as a child. Not only are the scheduling and format a monumental debacle, the coverage to we free-to-air fans is so poor, it’s borderline non-existent.

So far, I’ve seen a grand total of zero overs in my lounge room at home, and heard just two matches on the radio.

I work nine-to-five and play for my club on Saturday. Oh yes, Saturday, the day the ICC (and I can only assume Cricket Australia) deemed the most appropriate for the hosts’ first three matches. Excuse me, but what on Earth were they thinking? Do they not understand the great Australian pastime of playing your own match on the Saturday? Do they understand this not only effects crowds and ratings, but is a giant ‘up yours’ to the punters?

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Unless you can afford Foxtel or going to the local pub everyday, you’ve been completely shut out from a tournament being run in our own country! How on earth does the ICC expect a host nation to get World Cup fever, or attract new fans when they care more for selling broadcast rights to on overseas company than promoting the game?

And don’t get me started on the radio. Granted, you can listen to every game live, but only if you have the ABC Grandstand app. If that’s not available to you, tough, as the ABC is only broadcasting the ‘big’ matches nationwide (read: India, Australia, England).

As a cricket fan – nay – lover, I find this utterly unacceptable. But what can you do? It’s the business now.

The 1999 and 2003 World Cups were broadcast on free-to-air and were a brilliant promotion for cricket. This dropped off in 2007, but I accepted it as it was in another country, and thought 2015 would be different. This was going to be our tournament. Unfortunately, I was so very wrong.

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