A suggestion for the ECB

Last night after watching the Orioles beat the Yankees in Game Two of the ALDS, I went to the Cricket Australia website and watched part of a Sheffield Shield match between South Australia and Tasmania. There was no commentary, no graphics and not even any sound. Between overs the camera panned to the scoreboard to keep viewers up-to-date. I don’t really have a horse in the Sheffield Shield, though I am slightly partial to South Australia (who are therefore on the wrong end of a hammering, of course), but I very much enjoyed watching. It’s not that far from summer here and certainly not the true depths of winter yet, but nonetheless it has been a month since the County Championship ended and about the same length of time since anyone played a Test. It was very nice to see proper, red ball cricket and there is always something delightful about domestic first-class matches regardless of the country.

But I do prefer the County Championship to the other first-class competitions and what would really be nice is if the ECB would stream matches in the same way. I know they already have fixed cameras at the grounds for their highlight pieces, so surely they could just have a live stream? I know Sky televise a couple of matches a season, but I would like to see the ECB work out a rights deal such that they could stream matches when Sky were not showing anything. I don’t know the costs, but I don’t expect it is too expensive to have just a single camera operator and although I would prefer it to be free I would actually pay a small amount to watch.

I suspect it is pretty low on the ECB’s radar and rightly so. But I would love to consistently be able to watch the County Championship live and especially Lancashire.