TV at the Test Photo CricInfo

The International Cricket Council has, for some years, been pursuing a policy of globalisation. Perhaps with one eye on the way soccer, American sports and even rugby union have spread beyond their traditional enclaves, and not unaware of the financial implications of such a growth, ICC has been trying to take cricket into new areas.

There are development programmes in place to encourage cricketers in some pretty unlikely places. Organised cricket is now played in venues as far apart as Iceland and Argentina and from Vancouver to Vanuatu. Coaches, umpires and cricket ambassadors ply the world on missionary work, taking the game to an ever-growing congregation.

In April, 2000, there was ICC Cricket Week when these activities gained impetus and intensity. There was a spectacular climax in Dhaka when an Asian XI and a rest of the World XI in a one-day match of epic excitement.

But the key to the success of all these initiatives in a modern world has to be television. If the game is seen regularly on a television screen, there will be interest among the people who watch it. That casual interest will lead to active involvement and the seed is sown.

That process is now being hastened by the ICC's decision to launch a new weekly television programme called ICC Cricket World. The programme follows a magazine format with interviews, features and highlights packages from recent international action around the world.

ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed backs the programme, saying: "There is already enormous worldwide interest in televised cricket and this new programme will help expand that audience further. The TV show is important to the ICC as a way of building the profile of the governing body and as an example of how we are using our marketing and commercial influence to promote the game of cricket around the world."

The ICC's commercial partner, World Sport Group, is producing the programme and has secured the rights from the Test-playing countries for the highlights footage from their international matches. They are now involved with further negotiations with broadcasters around the world to ensure that they get a wide screening, not only in major cricketing countries but also in emerging regions.

Channel 4 in the UK was the first station to air the programme, last Saturday. And a very slick and entertaining production it proved to be. Action from Sharjah involving Pakistan and the West Indies, the VB Series in Australia, New Zealand against England, and the Under 19 World Cup. There was a personality feature on Chris Cairns, news snippets (not all of which were very new, but it was the first programme!) and the programme tackled some hard issues, such as the Dalmiya/Denness crisis in South Africa.

While the programme is intended to be a development tool and a means of getting across the ICC message, the fact that it looked at one of the most contentious issues to have hit the modern game shows that it is by no means just a propaganda slot for cricket's governing body. If it had skirted round such topics, it would have lost credibility. It is to its credit that it tackled this one head on.

Now the production team needs to maintain the high standard it has set itself and get such a good programme, and such a good advertisement for the game, out to as wide a public as possible. It will have to take one step at a time, starting with the cricket-playing countries but then expanding into new areas and even into languages other than English.

Then the ICC, who have been totally supportive of the concept and the producers, will have made a major move in taking the greatest sport in the world to a truly global audience.

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