Wow. With such an enormous Asian community in the UK this could work well for them. But ITV doing cricket ?

Well, yes.

ITV did do cricket once- the Gillette Cup was invented in part as a means to break the BBC monopoly. They were apparently given a seven year deal to cover key games and the final- from 1962 to 1969. With the usual break clauses for extraordinary breaches, etc.

Cue 1966. The final was shown live, and due to end for 6. It duly overran. Just after 6- and with less than 5 overs left...ITV pulled the plug and went to the News and the usual variety schedule. And promised to show the end later. At 10.30.

Except that they then gave the result out on the evening News...in those pre-Ceefax and Internet days, can you imagine the outcry? The relevant MCC committee- the MCC being the English governing body until 1968- met on the next Monday and promptly exercised the break clause.

And that was that. For 45 long summers. But we did say a few years ago that ITV4 was perfect for cricket. Maybe they think so too.

Where do you get this stuff from WBB ?

I was thinking exactly the same !

I honestly read it somewhere and sometime- but heavens knows when and where. As Ernie Bevin said to George VI- 'I got it from the 'edgerows of my life'.

ITV did continue to show Bank Holiday exhibition cricket- especially when the Cavaliers were displaced by the new Sunday League in 1969. My first memory of cricket was a Lord's Taverners-Cavaliers match [I still think of those two teams as 'twins'] on a Bank Holiday afternoon in c. 1973 on ATV. For years I though it was some mad hallucination- but the scorecard is on Cricket Archive. I am not going to look it up now- but it was [in]famous as the last innings someone famous played- I think Denis Compton. He was bowled by a combination of, I seem to remember, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Brian Clough and David Frost: and he apparently gave his bat and gloves to a kid with a 'Harrow' bat in the crowd..get bowled by that lot in only a fun match and it is time to hang up your bat.

Git. Sad.

Please make up your own sentance using the above

I never thought you would admit to being one, Serchers!

On the subject of TV/media rights : I know no-one else here is interested in hockey but fyi the Hockey World Cup has just started and England have a half decent chance of doing well this year. Good start today with a 3-2 win over Australia

And matches can be watched here ; DailyTelegraphwouldyoubelieve

http://www.itv.com/sport/indianpremierleague/

Hosts will be Matt Smith, Simon Hughes and a Bollywood actress- look, its ITV: what do you expect?

Ant and Dec must be busy !

I can't be the only one who will watch this out of curioristy. I imagine the crowd atmosphere will be excellent.

Not showing the end of the 1966 final was probably no bad thing as Warwickshire beat us comfortably in a low scoring match.
I remember there were plans for ITV to show some of the Packer matches .
How do you remember all this WBB if you weren't born until 1970/71 ?

Sunbeam- I refer you to this:

WBB wrote:

I honestly read it somewhere and sometime- but heavens knows when and where. As Ernie Bevin said to George VI- 'I got it from the 'edgerows of my life'.

I got a few wrong??? I was the only one who answered out of Serchers and I : although to be fair, we did come to a fair agreement..I answered the questions and he bought the drinks. I thought that very very reasonable