England’s attempt to regain the Ashes this winter will be broadcast live in the UK by TNT Sports. After agreeing a one-year deal with Cricket Australia over the weekend TNT now has the rights for all of England’s winter tours, as the broadcaster had deals in place to cover both white-ball series in New Zealand and Sri Lanka either side of the Ashes.
TNT’s predecessor, BT Sport, bought the rights for the past two Ashes tours so the new deal may be inauspicious for Ben Stokes’s side as their viewers have not seen England win a single game. England have lost 13 of the past 15 Tests they have played in Australia, which shows the size of the task for the touring side this winter.
TNT has increasingly become the home of England’s winter cricket deals in recent years and has long-term rights in place with New Zealand, West Indies and Pakistan, as well as securing a late deal to cover England’s five-Test series in India last winter.
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McCullum: India series will prime us for Ashes
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Brendon McCullum accepts England have “room to improve” before the Ashes but the head coach believes the intensity of their dramatic drawn series against India will help them to meet the challenge.
McCullum was honest enough to chalk up the 2-2 scoreline as a “fair reflection” on seven weeks of hard-fought, demanding cricket, with India grabbing a share of the new Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy with a thrilling six-run win at the Oval. That meant England were one hit from claiming an outright victory that would have sent them to Australia this winter with the biggest scalp of the Bazball era. Instead, they will travel having last defeated one of their “big three” rivals in Alastair Cook’s farewell series in 2018.
“It’s been a magnificent series, as good as I’ve been involved with or witnessed in my time. We played some excellent cricket and at times, with the pressure India put us under, we came up a little bit short,” McCullum said.
“You’re always learning any time you get to see guys having to dig deep and go to places they’ve maybe not been before. We’ll let this one sit and we’ll digest it.
“We’re in the middle now, halfway through what we knew was going to be an unbelievable 12 months of Test cricket. We know we’ve got some room to improve. But to be involved in a series of such pressure over a period like this teaches you to be tough and builds resilience within you. A lot of our guys will have learnt a lot and that can only be a good thing.”
One thing England may reflect on is their decision to keep the emerging talent of Jacob Bethell in camp for the most of the summer, rather than releasing him to play first-class cricket. He has played just one County Championship match for Warwickshire this year, while travelling as a non-playing squad member with the Test team. When he was called on as Ben Stokes’s injury replacement, he made 11 runs in two innings and was dismissed in a pressurised chase playing a wild slog. McCullum refused to chide him for that, though.
“Beth will be back and better for the experience, I’m sure he’ll learn from it. The good thing was he took the positive option. He got out doing it, but no one ever regretted being positive, right?”
Unlike that tour, in which the former England players Alastair Cook and Steven Finn provided commentary from a studio in the Netherlands, TNT is planning to send a team to Australia, although it will also use coverage from the host broadcaster.
TNT’s dominance follows a decision from Sky Sports to pull back from winter tours due to cost-cutting and its focus on covering Premier League football – it will broadcast 215 matches live this season.
Sky still has the rights to International Cricket Council events, such as the men’s and women’s World Cup and T20 World Cup, but its only contract for bilateral series is with Cricket South Africa.
TNT’s new Cricket Australia deal also includes men’s white-ball series against South Africa and India, and a multiformat women’s series against India.
Todd Greenberg, the Cricket Australia chief executive, said: “We’re pleased to extend our longstanding partnership with TNT Sports and that they will again be instrumental in showcasing the Australian summer of cricket to UK audiences.”
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England will be hoping to win the Ashes for the first time since Cook’s side defeated Australia 3-2 at home in 2015. The tourists have not won a Test in Australia since Andrew Strauss’s side triumphed in Sydney in January 2011, which sealed a 3-1 series win, their first down under since 1987.
