ESS to air ICC World Twenty20 qualifier

MUMBAI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced that the last three days of the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier UAE 2012 will be shown live by ESPN Star Sports. This is the first time that there will be live broadcast of an ICC Development event online and on television to a global audience.

Six matches from 22-24 March will be shown live from the Dubai International Cricket Stadium online at www.espnstar.com/live. The ICC has also secured live television coverage of these games into key territories via ESPN Star Sports and its licensees around the globe. A full broadcast list will be circulated at a later date.

This will be the first time that an ICC Development event, featuring only the Associate and Affiliate Members, will be shown on a live global television broadcast.

The ICC said this represents a breakthrough to expose cricket outside the traditional Test playing countries and, aligned with the ICC?s Strategic Plan, is an important step in promoting cricket to become a bigger, better global game.

The ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier UAE 2012 is a 16-team global event that will be played in the UAE from 13-24 March. The top two sides will progress to the ICC World Twenty20 Sri Lanka 2012, to be staged in Colombo, Hambantota and Pallekele from 18 September to 7 October, where they will have the potential opportunity to face Australia, England, India and West Indies.

Among the six live matches that will be broadcast from the Dubai International Cricket Stadium are the first qualifying final, the preliminary final, the second qualifying final and the overall event final.

ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat said, "We are delighted that the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier UAE 2012 can be watched live on television and online broadcast. We would like to thank our broadcast partner, ESPN STAR Sports, and our licensees for their splendid commitment to help us grow the game across the world and for their recognition of the growing interest in the sport outside of the Test playing world. This is an important part of our global strategy."

ESS senior VP, corporate development and cricket rights Anurag Dahiya said, "We are pleased to be working with the ICC to ensure that six matches from this important qualification tournament are shown across the world via our digital platform espnstar.com. We have already seen through our broadcast of recent ICC events, how well the likes of Afghanistan and Ireland have competed against some of the best players in the world, so it will be exciting to see these teams battle it out with some of the other leading Associate and Affiliate teams and allow our viewers to watch matches between nations that they may have never seen play cricket before."