Live Streaming Cricket Sites: India-England One Days & Twenty20 World Cup)

Ever since the India-England series started, I have been receiving quite a few e-mails from readers asking for quality sites which will webcast Live Streaming Cricket action from the India vs England series and also for the coming Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa. These are cricket fans living outside of the major cricket nations - mainly Indians, Pakistani and Bangladeshi cricket fans living in the United States; as they don't get live TV telecast of the cricket matches in their cities. While I had always provided a link to few sites webcasting live cricket action or providing live streaming action, I thought it would benefit a lot of cricket fans if a post could be done on "Live Cricket Streaming Web Sites".

I did a fair bit of research on the net, googling google with various keyword including "live cricket streaming", "live streaming cricket", "live streaming cricket sites", "links to live cricket videos", "live streaming India-England cricket", "live streaming Twenty20 Twenty World Cup" and god knows many more such permutations and combinations. Though I have come up with a number of results for you, but the bad news is that I didn't come up with any one site that I could genuinely recommend for live cricket webcasts. These sites are all unorganised, of shoddy quality and I guess also illegal or if not illegal, at least unauthorised. However, if you are not getting your favourite game of cricket live on TV, legalities can be damned with for a while, can't it? Willow.TV is the one exception to the rule, however this site is not accessible from all geographical locations. So here goes:

1. Willow.TV

Well the tagline on the site is very clear on one thing: "The Leader in Live Cricket Video

Streaming". Among the current 'live cricket' on offer are 'India in England', 'India vs Pakistan

in Scotland' , 'Bangladesh tour of Sri Lanka', and 'West Indies tour of England'. Now, some of

these tours are well and over, and I hope for the fans that Willow.TV will give you the live

streams from the Twenty20 World Cup, because these guys look the best, and more

importantly, the others don't look good at all.

2. Action8Cricket.com

India - England 7 One-Day Package for 14.95 $

Twenty20 World Cup Package not yet announced, but i guess you can expect it here.

Review at "Richie's Blogs": "The quality ain't as good as Willow TV and after installation I

got a couple of annoying ads, but generally I am pretty happy."

The blog also recommends that for best live streaming quality, opt for Exploerer over Firefox.

3. ESPNStar.com

While this site doesn't give you streaming live cricket, it gives you good quality flash

animation of the live cricket action. More importantly, this is at least a quality and legal

source for viewing cricket.

4. LiveSportsOn.TV

Interesting and apt usage of the domain extension .TV, ain't it? Well, you will have to shell out

8.62 $ for each day of live action from the India-England series (test as well as ODIs) and

funnily enough to catch the live streaming action from the likely less engrossing India-

Scotland one-day in Glasgow on the 16th August, you need to pay almost twice that. But there

is more interesting pricing coming up: the Twenty20 World Cup action is the cheapest. Catch

live streams of cricket from South Africa on your desktop for just under 4 $ per day. That one

sounds like a good deal, what say?

5. ApnaITV.com

How much they care for accuracy and quality I could gauge from the 8 India-England ODI

package they are selling. I am assuming it's a live streaming package for the 7 India-England

one-dayers and the one between India and Scotland. This bouquet of "Live Cricket for 8

ODIs" comes for 25.98 $.

The one good thing about the ApnaITV guys was that they bothered with telling the benefits

or features of their 'live video streaming' packages. Noteworthy among the features were: 'TV

like quality at 600 kbps', 'view at full screen', ( if they had instead written 'view on small

screen' I would have surely promoted them to no.4!), 'connect to tv simply with s-video',

'no extra hardware or software required' et al.

Now there are quite a few other websites that claim to provide 'live cricket streaming videos' - some paid, some free and yet others who ask for donations only. Here are a few more that you may check out:

6. DaruChini.Com

The Bangladesh-Sri Lanka series was being webcasted live by Daru Chini, so you may like to check this site out again, though they currently make no mention of the Twenty20 World Cup or any other 'live-streaming cricket' action for that matter.

7. Watch-Live-Cricket.com

This webcaster also claims it will give you streaming live action from the Twenty20 Cricket action as well as the current India-England series.

8. Live-TV-Net.com

9. TVandSportsStreams.com

10. Last but not the least should you feel like recording the live streaming cricket videos that you are getting on your desktop, check out WMRecorder.Com

Lots of Warnings:

a) This blog is in no way connected to any of these sites, nor has it been sponsored by any one or more of them. This is just a compilation of websites which provide 'live streaming cricket' action and you are advised to check out the veracity of the claims these sites make on your own before your proceed to purchase any package they are selling.

b) I have tried my best to be as accurate while mentioning the prices and the URLs, should there be any mistake, we shall not be held responsible for it.

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Live Streaming Cricket and Highlights of the India-Australia Series
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Twenty20 Cricket Hots Up: Both ICC & ICL

Even as the Ray Mali, the interim president of ICC officially launched the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup to be held in South Africa later this year, Thursday brought more exciting news for the breakaway Zee group led Indian Cricket League (ICL).

Australian Media reports say that the NewZealand captain, Stephen Fleming could retire from international cricket (the ICC version that is) to take up the captaincy of one of the six teams which will take part in the inaugural tournament of the Indian Cricket League - a Twenty20 tournament to be held in October this year, close to the ICC Twenty20 World Cup. Former West Indies captain Brian Lara and a number of other former and current players have already joined the Indian Cricket League. If you are wondering why Fleming would do such a thing, it is probably a 3 year deal worth US $ 7,35,000 which may be working against ICC, and in favour of ICL!

If Fleming does indeed join the ICL Camp, then that will be the first serious blow dealt by the ICL to the ICC. It may also open the floodgates for a number of other current players to join the Zee bandwagon. Should be exciting anywhichways: I was too young when the Kerry Packer hungama happened. Not this time!

All about the Indian Cricket League

The Zee sponsored Indian Cricket League has made its biggest acquisition till date - Brian Lara, and will in all likelihood be in the sporting headlines of all major dailies today. Time to take stock of BCCI's newest headache!

Key Players:

Subhash Chandra, Head of Zee

Zee Telefilms / Essel Group

IL & FS ( Infrastrure Group, which makes it all the more interesting )

Himanshu Modi - Business Head, Zee Sports

Reasons for Creation of Indian Cricket League (ICL)

- Zee Telefilms' ambition to create sports content ( Zee Sports)

* Expectation of bagging huge telecast rights from BCCI didn't materialise.

* Zee has bought 50% stake in TEN Sports.

- Cricket is huge in India. Even a 10% share of India's cricket pie runs into hundreds of crores of rupees.

- Capitalise on Indian fans' disappointment with BCCI and the current state of affairs.The early exit from the World Cup created the right platform.

- Subhash Chandra's personal ambition to glory.

- Subhash's grouse against Pawar/BCCI: Chandra backed Pawar against Dalmiya in the BCCI elections, but there was not enough quid pro quo

- Texan Billionaire Allan Stanford's Twenty20 Cup in the Caribbean, a similar venture has been a roaring success.

- Similar leagues are being formed around the world. Twenty20 Cricket has been a huge success even in places like England, where cricket as a sport has been on the slide in the past few years.

Players already roped in by the Indian Cricket League:

Kapil Dev, Brian Lara, Tony Greig, Madan Lal, Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Dean Jones, Kiran More, Sandeep Patil,

Other players rumoured/believed to have been approached:

Shane Warne, Glenn Mc Grath, Russel Arnold, Nathan Astle, Rohan Gavaskar, Hemang Badani, Anil Kumble, Shoaib Akhtar

Likely/Possible Other candidates:

Jason Gillespie, Tatenda Taibu, Heath Streak ( and a number of other Zimbabweans), VVS Laxman, Akash Chopra, Deep Das Gupta, Murali Karthik, Marvan Attapatu, Damien Martyn, Stuart Mc Gill, Inzamam-ul-haq, Ajay Jadeja, Nikhil Chopra, Saqlain Mushtaq, Chris Cairns....

Immediate Plan:

First season of ICL begins October 2007. The plan is to have an inaugural Twenty20 League tournament between 6 private teams. The prize money is reportedly US $ 1 million.

The six teams will comprise Indian, overseas and junior players. The plan is to expand this pool of 6 teams to 16 in the next three years.

At a time when the cash-rich BCCI is struggling to find a single coach for the national team, the ICL plans to have a coach, manager, mentor, psychologist and therapist for each team!

Funding:

Zee, alongwith partner IL&FS to put in Rs.100 crores into ICL.

Set-up / ICL Who's Who?

Kapil Dev - Head, Executive Board, Indian Cricket League

Other ICL Board Members: Dean Jones, Kiran More, Tony Greig

Team Coaches (so far appointed):

Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal, Balwinder Singh Sandhu.

Reactions / Official Stands:

BCCI: As was to be expected, the BCCI is completely against the formation of ICL. So much so that the pensions of ex-players like Kiran More who have joined the ICL have been suspended.

PCB: The Pakistan Cricket Board has said that it cannot stop those players from participating in the ICL who have not been offered a central contract by the board.

NZPA: The New Zealand Players' Association has supported ICL, but is waiting for an official word from ICC.

Watch this space for more.

Twenty/20 World Cup pools announced: India & Pakistan together

So, the ICC has ensured that what happened at the World Cup in West Indies will not happen in the Twenty/20 World Cup, only a few month later in the year in South Africa. India and Pakistan have been put together in the same group alongwith Scotland, and since the top 2 teams qualify into the next round, there is no way that both the sub-continental power-houses can make an early exit, upsets or no upsets.

Group A: South Africa, West Indies, Bangladesh
Group B: Australia, England, Zimbabwe
Group C: New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Kenya
Group D: Pakistan, India, Scotland

The top 2 teams from each group will proceed to the Super-Eight round, followed by the semi-finals on 22nd September and the final on the 23rd September. The first World Twenty-Twenty Championship starts 11th September, and just like the first match of the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, this one too starts with a South Africa - West Indies match.

Only 3 venues will be used for this inaugural 20-Twenty Cup: Durban, Johannesburg and Capetown.

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Click here for a List of Live Streaming Sites for Twenty20 Cup

Click here for a Schedule of the Twenty20 World Cup with the added fun of some predictions.

India's own Twenty-Twenty begins: Bengal beat Assam

The East Zone leg of the National Twenty-Twenty Championship began at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata today. In the first tie, a refurbished Bengal team led by Manoj Tewari took on Assam.

Batting first, Bengal piled up 169, powered by a 17 ball 25 start given by young Wriddhiman Saha. Rohan Gavaskar joined in the party with a 17 ball 26 and captain Manoj Tiwari scored 36 runs. India under-19 start Abu Nachiman was given special treatment by the Bengal batsmen and was punished with 33 runs being scored off his quota of 4 overs. Pritam Das was the only Assam bowler who looked good, taking 3 wickets.

Chasing a Net Run Rate of over 8 runs an over, the inexperienced Assam batsmen were never really in the hunt. The young Bengal players including Abhishek Jhunjunwala and the captain himself fielded too well for the Assam batters' comfort, effecting a brilliant run-out and a couple of close to imposssible catches. Eventually, Assam lost the match by 35 runs. S.S. Paul took 2 wickets for Bengal, while S. Bhagwati was the top scorer for Assam with 26.

The other teams in the fray in the East Zone are Jharkand, Tripura and Orissa. In the next match, Bengal take on Jharkhand which will be bolstered by the presence of power-hitter Mahendra Singh Dhoni. India's early exit from the World Cup has added some unexpected glamour to India's first Twenty-Twenty Cup, and should generate more interest than it otherwise would have.The Twenty-Twenty World Cup will be held in September this year in South Africa, and from that viewpoint this tournament may generate more than its fair share of interest. India cricket desperately needs some new faces - Let's hope this cup throws up a couple of new stars.