On the last day of the recently concluded T20 World Cup qualifier I received a media release from the ICC. The headline was "Philippines skipper Jonathan Hull terms their maiden participation at global qualifiers akin to a ‘Super Bowl’".
Just one problem. His name is actually Jonathan Hill. An easy typing error given that I and U are next to each other on a standard English keyboard that can be excused. But perhaps not - he was referred to as Hull throughout the release. It was indicative of the rather haphazard coverage the ICC has given to this qualifier.
The first media release was issued just two days before the tournament - by this time I'd received two media releases about the Women's World Cup that was set to start a week after the qualifier. It wasn't a good start.
It was full of grammatical errors and strange turns of phrase. It got the names of players wrong. It referred to Germany and the Philippines as "minnows", a term that associates have long fought to shake off. Someone writing official content for the ICC really should know to avoid that term.
Onto the live stream then. First, I should say that having all qualifier events live streamed has been a superb decision by the ICC. Like many others involved in associate cricket I'd been calling for it for some time and I warmly welcomed it when it was announced.
But this live stream represented a major step back in production standards from the last qualifier. That got the full broadcast treatment from Star Sports and only the absence of DRS separated it from broadcasts of full member international cricket. This qualifier on the other hand had a three camera stream, one of which seemed to be a little wonky, had drained colours and certainly wasn't in high definition.
The stream was also rather unstable, especially that on the secondary ground which for some matches could barely get through an entire over before being replaced with a "We'll be right back" message.
On the second day of the tournament many people in the UK were gripped by a live stream of planes landing at Heathrow airport during storm Eunice. This stream - broadcast from a field outside the airport during a storm - had a better picture quality than the ICC's stream and stayed up throughout. A sports governing body should be able to live stream their events better than a guy in a van in a field during a storm.
The ICC.TV app still doesn't allow users to watch more than one match at once unless you create multiple accounts, making the decision to schedule the two semi-finals - the most important matches in the whole tournament - simultaneously a bizarre one indeed.
To be fair, the commentary was far and away better than in the last qualifier. Rather than the usual group of commentators used for these tournaments who know very little about the players or the context of the matches and have done seemingly no research beyond looking at a Cricinfo profile, the stream instead had knowledgable commentators who have followed associate cricket for years. But they were let down by the production quality.
Away from the stream the ICC's promotion of the tournament wasn't great. Their social media outlets seemed at time more interested in bilateral cricket, the Pakistan Super League and wishing players a happy birthday. I've been told in the past that the ICC prefers to have images and videos to go with social media posts (research suggests these are the posts that get more engagement) and that was why they didn't post much about associate cricket in the past. But there are videos now, and still the promotion wasn't there. Unlike during the Ashes, there was no pop-up on the ICC website to inform people about ICC.TV.
There is still another qualifier to come in Zimbabwe in July. Hopefully the ICC can iron out some of these issues by then. But some of these issues were identified with the first live streamed event back in August and there's been no change.
Despite what some people think people do care about associate cricket. People care about tournaments like this one. There are people at the ICC who care. But I'm not convinced the people who organised the qualifier cared enough.
The View
Andrew Nixon: 27 February
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