England's cricketers have voiced their hope that Sky Sports will open up the World Cup final to a ‘free-to-air’ audience — should they reach its final on Sunday week.
There have been more than a few envious glances across at the huge numbers that the football Women’s World Cup have been drawing on the BBC this summer, with 11.7m tuning into their semi-final defeat by the USA on Tuesday.
And although Sky have been drawing in decent numbers to the World Cup cricket action for their pay-for platform, their average audience of 550,000 for England's group games is dwarfed in comparison.
There is already a strong likelihood that Sky will show any final containing England on Sky 1 so all their subscribers can watch, not just their sports premium customers.
After the hosts secured a semi-final at Edgbaston next Thursday with a Wednesday win over New Zealand, fast bowler Liam Plunkett was asked on BBC Radio Five Live whether he would like to see the final at Lord's made free-to-air if they get there.
He replied: “It’s always nice to be on a bigger platform. I’m not sure they’re going to do it but it would great for everybody to be able to watch that.
“Playing for England, you’re the pride of the country and you want people to be able to access that and watch that. It would be nice to go all the way and to have big numbers watching that final if we get through and win, that would be huge.
“I’m not sure it's going to happen but for the guys, you want as many people to watch it as possible.”
Plunkett’s comments probably won’t be hugely appreciated either by Sky or his bosses at the ECB, who have just signed a deal together worth more than a billion pounds to show more cricket than ever on the digital broadcaster's channels from next summer.
