Liam Plunkett has thrown his support behind the idea of the Cricket World Cup final being screened on a free-to-air platform, saying England’s players want as many people watching the tournament as possible.
Eoin Morgan’s one-day team booked a place in the semi-finals for the first time since 1992 with a dominant 119-run victory over New Zealand on Wednesday, but fears remain that their rollercoaster campaign has not captured the imagination of the wider public due to the entire tournament being televised exclusively by Sky Sports.
The viewing figures so far have been dwarfed by the Women’s football World Cup – a peak audience of 11.7m tuned into BBC One to watch England’s semi-final defeat to USA, the highest British viewing figures of 2019 – and now Plunkett has let slip possible dressing room concerns on the subject.
Asked on Radio 5 Live whether he would like the World Cup final to be screen on free-to-air, the fast bowler replied: “I’m not sure it’s going to happen but for the guys, you want as many people to watch it as possible.
“Playing for England you’re the pride of the country and you want people to be able to access that and watch that. It’s always nice to be on a bigger platform.
“We feel we’ve built something special here as a team. It would be nice to go all the way and to have big numbers watching that final if we get through – that would be huge.”
The Cricket World Cup final is being staged at Lord’s on 14 July – the same day as the Wimbledon men’s final is shown on BBC One – and senior Sky executives had been considering ways to broaden its audience following talks with the England and Wales Cricket Board.
The Times reported this week that Sky have settled on showing the match on Sky One as well as its cricket and main event channels. As part of the satellite broadcaster’s basic package, Sky One is available to around 12m households – double the number of sport subscribers.