MUMBAI: ESPN Star Sports (ESS), Zee Sports and Ten Sports will telecast the 20-20 World Cricket Classic event in India. The International series, organised by the Get Fit Foundation (GEFF) and Blakesport, will be held in Bermuda from 23 April to 29 April.
Ten Sports will telecast the series in the Asia and the Middle East regions, while ESS will cater to its Asian viewers only. Zee has opted to telecast the series only in India. Channel Five (UK), CMC (Caribbean), Sky TV (New Zealand), MNET Supersport (Africa) and Fox Sports (Australia) will telecast the event in the respective regions.
The Classic series is the World’s first ever 20-20 International Cricket Tournament, involving teams from England, India, Australia, South Africa, West Indies, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Bermuda whose World Cup team take on the Windies’ legends in the tournament’s opening match.
The event features over 100 of the greatest international cricketing legends, such as, Ian Healy, Robin Smith, Rodney Hogg, Devon Malcolm, Aravinda De Silva, Greg Blewett, Chris Lewis, Phil Defreitas, Dion Nash, Trevor Franklin, Joel Garner, Gary Kirsten, Ajay Jadeja and Danny Morrison, states an official release.
The event will be covered by the UK production company Sunset+Vine, which will produce a one hour highlights programme. The series will be produced and directed by Gary Franses.
Terry Blake of Blakesport, GEFF’s TV consultant says, “We are delighted that the event has already attracted such substantial broadcast support from around the world and look forward to working with our broadcast and production partners on the first event in April.”
Jeff Foulser of Sunset+Vine states, “Having produced Test Cricket in the UK for the last seven years, we delighted to be involved with such an exciting international event.”
Tag: 20-20 cricket
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ESS, Zee, Ten Sports pick up telecast rights for 20-20 cricket
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Lanka Cricket, Ten Sports to play 20/20 cricket
MUMBAI: Innovation is the name of the game as far as presenting sports is concerned. The same holds true for cricket. Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) together with Ten Sports have announced they will will stage the first 20/20 cricket event in Asia.
The event will be played in August and September. This is when the Holland Tourney and Champions Trophy take place on Max. The 20/20 event was first introduced in England to stop the rapidly declining interest in their county cricket.
As the name suggests each team bats for and bowls only 20 overs instead of the nromal 50. The inaugural tournament in Asia will have Sri Lanka’s 16 premier clubs divided into two groups. The quarter finals take place on 2 September while the final will be played on 3 September. Ten Sports will have live coverage of this. The broadcaster is also looking to have a similar event staged in Pakistan.
One wonders though as to the kind of viewing the tournament will get in India. It is a fact that interest in our Ranji Trophy is dismal to say the least. Couple this with the fact that as mentioned above 20/20 will be competing for attention with two premiere international cricket tournaments.
It remains to be seen as to how Ten goes about building up interest in the brand. Max was able to successfully do that for the Under 19 World Cup which was held earlier this year. Max’s former business head Rajat Jain recently told Indiantelevision.com that the next time the event took place advertisers and media planners would sit up and take notice.
SLC CEO Duleep Mendis added, “20-20-cricket is a new concept, which has come to stay in terms of playing positive cricket and a result oriented version of the game. It is attractive to both spectators and sponsors alike and the hallmark of 20-20-cricket would be that a game could be concluded within the space of three hours.”
Ten Sports VP Peter Hutton mentioned that for some time the broadcaster had been trying to make steps to assist domestic cricket in Sri Lanka. “I am sure this will be just the first of such initiatives.”
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First professional cricket league formed in US
MUMBAI: The interest levels among Americans in cricket are comparable to our interest in the National Football League (NFL). However that is not stopping American Pro Cricket (ProCricket), the organisation that’s formed to promote cricket in the US, from trying to build up awareness around the game in the US.
The organisation has formed the first ever professional cricket league in the US. There will be eight teams and the season starts on 2 July. The matches will air on a thus far unnamed national TV network in the US.
Of course innovations are needed so that the game gets some sort of fan following. One new aspect is three-hour long matches characterised by “Fast n’ Furious Global Action”. New ProCricket rules include time limits and a version of baseball’s Designated Hitter Rule. The aim is to get fast-paced, action-packed matches.
All of this is crucial. The ICC is keen on having the likes of India going to the US for tournaments. In the past India and Pakistan have played in the Sahara Cup in Canada.
Coming back to the league the teams have names like Chicago Tornadoes, Florida Thunder and New Jersey Fire. In order to inject professionalism right way 40 cricketers from India, Australia, England, Pakistan among other cricket playing nations have been signed to ProCricket contracts for the season. There will also be 120 US players.
The international players include Indian off spinner Nikhil Chopra, former batsman Ajay Jadeja, former West Indian pace great Courtney Walsh and English paceman Andy Caddick. The matches will be along the lines of 20/20 cricket which was first adopted by England in order to revive interest in their county cricket. Here only 20 overs are played by each side instead of 50.