The BBC has announced its coverage plans for 2020 English cricket season as the sport returns to BBC Television for the first time on a regular basis in over two decades.
Free-to-air highlights of every Test match and One-Day International to be played this summer will be shown nightly on BBC Two at 7pm from July, with former Women’s Cricket World Cup-winner Isa Guha confirmed as the lead presenter of BBC TV’s cricket coverage, having left Sky Sports at the end of last summer.
Guha will present the programmes alongside former England Ashes-winning captain and the BBC’s lead cricket analyst Michael Vaughan. Both will also on duty in the BBC TV commentary box alongside England’s record Test run-scorer Sir Alastair Cook and West Indies’ 2016 World T20 final hero Carlos Brathwaite.
Completing the BBC’s commentary team for the TV highlights shows will be experienced cricket broadcaster Alison Mitchell and former England spinner Phil Tufnell, with coverage getting underway with England’s three-match Test series against West Indies.
This will be followed by further matches throughout the summer once the international cricket calendar is confirmed, with the 2020 domestic and international season having been greatly affected due to the coronavirus pandemic.
On radio, the BBC’s Test Match Special will continue to broadcast ball-by-ball commentary on all of England’s international games this summer, with the team led by the BBC’s cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew.
The BBC Sport website – bbc.co.uk/cricket – will also have video clips of all the big moments as soon as they happen throughout each day’s play, along with live text commentary, audio streams and audience interaction for all of England’s summer internationals.
The BBC regained free-to-air TV rights to cover English cricket, in a joint five-year £1.1bn deal with Sky Sports, back in 2017, taking from Channel 5 as the place to watch terrestrial highlights of England internationals.
The deal gives the corporation 100 hours of televised cricket each summer, including live coverage of two men’s T20 internationals, one women’s T20 international and 18 matches from the new men’s and women’s Hundred competition, which has been postponed to 2021 due to coronavirus.
Whisper will produce the BBC’s international cricket highlights shows for at least the next two seasons, with the BBC’s own in-house sports production team in charge of its live output.
To warm up for the return of regular televised cricket, BBC Sport will transport fans back to some of the most memorable England v West Indies Test matches of all time.
BBC Two’s Greatest Matches series, starting on 6 June, will relive many unforgettable moments as a generation of English cricketers battled against the charismatic brilliance of the best team in the world – the West Indies .
From the famous long room at Lord’s, Isa Guha will present the highlights from the classic games and tell the stories behind these incredible clashes that would eventually see England turn the tide on one of the most dominant teams in sport.
Fans can witness some of the all-time great performances from the likes of Ian Botham, Gordon Greenidge, Graham Gooch and Dominic Cork and watch some of the best to have ever played in full flow, such as Viv Richards and Brian Lara.
Then on 12 July, BBC Two will broadcast a new documentary – ‘One Day’ – looking back at that one remarkable day on 14 July, 2019, that played host to one of the most incredible Wimbledon men’s final matches of all time and the England cricket team lifting the World Cup trophy.
Viewers can relive the five-hour extravaganza between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer and the electrifying moment the England cricket team stormed to victory against New Zealand, taking home the team’s first ever 50 over World Cup win.
Commenting on cricket’s return to BBC TV, Barbara Slater, the corporation’s director of sport, said:
“We are delighted to welcome back Test Match cricket highlights to BBC TV.
“Along with broadcasting some of the best classic matches from over the decades, the coverage will provide the perfect mix for cricket fans this summer.”
The 2020 season marks the first time that the BBC has broadcast TV coverage England home international matches since 1998, after it lost the rights to Channel 4.
The BBC did share live coverage with Sky Sports of the 1999 Cricket World Cup played in England but the tournament brought to end BBC TV’s association with English cricket after more than 60 years.
Since then, the BBC has picked up the rights to broadcast cricket highlights on a sporadic basis, including the 2006/07 Ashes series, the 2007 and 2011 ICC Cricket World Cups and the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 in England. Its most recent cricket coverage on TV was a late deal to show highlights of the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy.
The BBC declined to bid for highlights of last summer’s Cricket World Cup in England due to scheduling issues with other sporting events, paving the way for Channel 4 to pick up the rights. They would go on to simulcast Sky Sports’ coverage of the incredible final at Lord’s, won by England in a famous ‘super over’.
Full details of the BBC’s confirmed cricket coverage this summer can be found below.
For a full list of all forthcoming cricket on the box, visit SOTB’s dedicated cricket TV listings page.
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8-12 JULY
England v West Indies
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16-20 JULY
England v West Indies
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24-28 JULY
England v West Indies
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THURSDAY 30th JULY
England v Ireland
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SATURDAY 1st AUGUST
England v Ireland
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TUESDAY 4th AUGUST
England v Ireland
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5-9 AUGUST
England v Pakistan
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13-17 AUGUST
England v Pakistan
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21-25 AUGUST
England v Pakistan
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FRIDAY 28th AUGUST
England v Pakistan
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SUNDAY 30th AUGUST
England v Pakistan
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14:15 |
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TUESDAY 1st SEPTEMBER
England v Pakistan
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FRIDAY 4th SEPTEMBER
England v Australia
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SUNDAY 6th SEPTEMBER
England v Australia
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14:15 |
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TUESDAY 8th SEPTEMBER
England v Australia
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FRIDAY 11th SEPTEMBER
England v Australia
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SUNDAY 13th SEPTEMBER
England v Australia
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WEDNESDAY 16th SEPTEMBER
England v Australia
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MONDAY 21st SEPTEMBER
England v West Indies
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WEDNESDAY 23rd SEPTEMBER
England v West Indies
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SATURDAY 26th SEPTEMBER
England v West Indies
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13:00 |
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MONDAY 28th SEPTEMBER
England v West Indies
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WEDNESDAY 30th SEPTEMBER
England v West Indies
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