Wisden.com made cricket history today by becoming the first website to show an England international live on the internet. Television coverage of the first one-day international at Calcutta was streamed live to cricket lovers around the world who had signed up for the pay-per-view service. The service is provided by Wisden Online in association with PCC (who with Doordarshan, jointly own dd.now.com), holders of the worldwide internet rights for Indian cricket. Last March dd.now broadcast India's home Test series against Australia live to viewers around the world.

The pictures came from Doordarshan, the Indian state broadcaster, with commentary by Ian Botham, David Gower, Sanjay Manjrekar and the rest of the team from Sky, the UK satellite channel.

Wisden.com, launched last July, already has registered users in 100 different countries, and the company's chief executive officer, Robin Bevan, stressed the significance of this new departure.

"Cricket has a truly global following," said Bevan, " and fans from Los Angeles to Hong Kong can have the benefit of live ball-by-ball coverage, comment and statistics wherever they are in the world."

The Wisden.com 20:20 show is also included within the package. A statiscal magazine programme which made its debut on Doordarshan in the Test series, it is hosted by Charu Sharma, with expert analysis from former Test players Tim Robinson and Laxman Sivaramakrishnan.

Three levels of subscription - Gold, Silver and Bronze - are available, all of which can be bought on a match-by-match basis, or as a package for the entire series. Gold offers live coverage of each day's play, plus 15 minutes of highlights at the end of every session. The packages are produced, encoded, and streamed from the Penta Media Studios in Chennai.

Every ball - live on your screen.
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