With the rapidly increasing novel Coronavirus cases, the world has come to a virtual standstill. People have been told to practice social distancing as the pandemic has claimed more than 21,000 lives and infected over 472,000 globally as of March 26.
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With most countries going into lockdown, closing borders and issuing travel restrictions to contain the spread of virus, cricket has also come to a grinding halt.
Therefore, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided to open its comprehensive archive of match footage and programming to its broadcast partners.
The aim of ICC is to keep the fans entertained during this crisis as they now will be able to relive some of the greatest cricketing moments of the last 45 years.
“The move will enable fans around the world to watch memorable cricket matches, highlights and ICC films at a time live sport programming stands disrupted due to the Corona Virus. ICC events dating back to 1975, including the men’s and women’s ICC Cricket World Cups and T20 World Cups, the Champions Trophy as well as the U19 World Cups have been made available,” the ICC said in a media release.
“Additionally fans can join in the fun via Watch Parties on the ICC Facebook page where some of the most iconic games in the history of the sport will be replayed in full. Match highlights and tournament recaps will also be delivered through ICC social channels and the ICC website and mobile app and fans can get involved and vote on the memories they want to see from the ICC archive,” it added.
The footage available to broad partners will include memorable matches of the ICC men’s events in addition to those between trans-Tasman rivals Australia and New Zealand, sub-continental adversaries India and Pakistan, Ashes competitors Australia and England.
From the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, selected matches of 1975, 1979 and 1983 editions will be shown besides the knockout matches of subsequent editions. It is up to the broadcasters to show the games in full or highlights as they alter their programming in the coming weeks
Fans will also be able to re-live matches of the ICC Champions Trophy in 2004 2006, 2009 and 2013, and five editions of the T20 World Cup from 2007 to 2014. Those looking for women’s matches, will get to watch the 2009 and 2013 editions, apart from matches of different T20 World Cups.
It will be a visual treat for the fans as the official film, official highlights and behind-the-scenes programmes from the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 will also be made available.
Moreover, several other similar programmes from other ICC Events will be made available while the programmes on women’s cricket include features on the stars of ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2018 and ICC Women’s World Cup 2017.
Commenting on this move, ICC Chief Executive Manu Sawhney said: “We are facing unprecedented times as a sports industry and the need to connect with our fan communities is perhaps greater than ever. With no live cricket to unite our fans around the world we thought the next best thing would be to release our archive to broadcast partners so fans can enjoy some magnificent memories.
“We hope this move will help our broadcast partners replace cancelled sports fixtures with some highly engaging content and give cricket fans the opportunity to relive some of the great cricketing moments whilst we all stay at home.
“There will also be the opportunity for fans to get involved via the ICC social channels, with Facebook Watch Parties on the ICC Facebook page and votes for which matches from the last four decades they want to unlock from the ICC archive.”
(With ICC inputs)
