The International Cricket Council on Tuesday unveiled details of its comprehensive broadcast coverage and innovations ahead of the ICC World Twenty20 India 2016.
For the first time at a major ICC event, host broadcaster Sunset+Vine under the banner of ICC TV will produce live broadcast coverage of 48 matches, including all 35 men’s and 13 women’s matches, which, in turn, will be aired around the world by ICC’s Global Broadcast Partner Star Sports and its licensees into more than 200 territories.
The coverage will include 30 cameras at all matches, including 6 Ultra-motion HawkEye cameras and Spidercam. Enhancements will include in-depth dynamic HawkEye packages, edge detection technology provided by UltraEdge, augmented reality graphics and in depth analytics provided by Cricviz. Following on from its success at international cricket last year, viewers back home will be able to hear the third umpire’s audio during umpire referrals, providing insight into decision making using broadcast technology. Fans will also be provided with live scores, statistics and other information vian a fresh and new ICC graphics package provided by Alston Elliot.
A stellar commentary line up will complement the new look and feel, which includes Wasim Akram, Athar Ali Khan, Russel Arnold, Harsha Bhogle, Ian Bishop, Anjum Chopra, Craig Cumming, Daren Ganga, Sunil Gavaskar, Nasser Hussein, Melanie Jones, Brendon Julian, Nick Knight, David Lloyd, Sanjay Manjrekar, Mpumelelo Mbangwa, Tom Moody, Shaun Pollock, Ramiz Raja, Michael Slater, Lisa Sthalekar, Scott Styris, Shane Warne and Alan Wilkins.
The ICC TV world feed coverage will begin with an in-depth 30-minute pre-match show, which will also include live toss, pitch report, player interviews and profiles and a match preview. The programme will be based around ICC TV’s philosophy of providing engaging and informative content, to all cricket fans.
ICC TV will also distribute additional created content beyond the boundary to its Broadcast Partners and other Media Rights Partners, via its Content Delivery Service. This content will include action from warm-up matches and non-televised matches, player profiles, team features and other behind the scenes content, giving fans an insight to the event like never before.
The tournament is expected to have the biggest reach ever, with close to 2 billion fans able to watch the ICC World Twenty20 India 2016 action televised by a global compliment of ICC Broadcast Partners including ICC’s Global Broadcast Partner Star Sports (India and Indian sub-continent), OSN (Middle East and North Africa), BSKYB (United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland), Willow TV (USA) SuperSport (South Africa and Africa), Fox Sports (Australia), SKY TV NZ (New Zealand), ESPN (Caribbean), PTV and Ten Sports (Pakistan), Maasranga, GTV & BTV (Bangladesh) as well as reaching Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Fiji, Netherlands, Singapore and Malaysia. Free-To-Air broadcasters like Doordarshan (India), SABC (South Africa) and Channel 9 (Australia) will add to the reach of the event. Additionally Highlights of each televised match will be available on all the official broadcasters and some more free-to-air broadcasters around the world.
Fans who cannot watch the broadcasts live have the option of listening to live audio commentary on Cricket Radio, produced by ICC’s Global Audio Rights Partner, Channel 2, or on the various other official audio broadcasters – BBC & TalkSport (UK), Radio 4 (UAE), Karachi 107FM (Pakistan), Zircon (Bangladesh), SLBC (Sri Lanka), Guardian (West Indies), SABC (South Africa).
ICC Chief Executive David Richardson said: “The ICC with the support of its broadcast partner Star Sports is committed to expanding its coverage so that its events can reach out to its fans as far as possible. Not only that, through innovative features and a line-up of highly knowledgeable commentators, we aim to bring to those fans who can’t be at the ground a coverage they have not experienced before and attract new audiences.
“This high quality coverage will also massively boost women’s cricket whose 13 matches will be broadcast for the first ever time.
“I am confident that the broadcast coverage of the ICC World Twenty20 India 2016 will contribute in making this event an unforgettable one.”
