As we all know, Amazon Prime is now your home of the ICC cricket tournaments here in Australia at least over the next four years until the end of the 2027 50-Over World Cup in South Africa including the upcoming T20 World Cup across the West Indies and USA starting next Sunday on the 2nd June between Canada v USA in Dallas, Texas. So no free-to-air or even Foxtel involved in the meantime where fans would have to pay $9.99 a month or $79 a year in order to watch the games. Yes, it’s still possible that there will be free-to-air ICC Cricket World Cup content at some point thanks to the Government’s anti-siphoning laws but it can only be held in Australia or New Zealand and the next one won’t come out until the 2028 T20 World Cup edition. It remains to be seen if Amazon will still be covering this for another term by then which will require them to seek a free-to air partner or see Foxtel return onboard with Seven instead of Nine and/or on its own elsewhere with Kayo Freebies.
This is going to look different alongside a brand new theme like FIFA in Soccer where there will be four group stages with each be playing against them four times, then the top two will go play against the other best Top 2 group stage teams that will be split into two groups again during the 2nd round Super 8s for the first time in a long time since 2014 and then you got two semi-finals followed by a final to round off towards the end of June on the 29th. How Amazon’s coverage will look like is that they will air all the matches live straight off the world feed coverage by ICC TV with no in-house production & broadcast talent involved of their own at all even in Australian games since they don’t have a Sydney studio including on-demand full replays and both 10 minute & 25 minute highlights length packages too. Plus, in you case you missed the game by tuning in live midway during the match, you can also quickly look back from the start via a two-minute recap feature which is something new to try. I personally don’t have an Amazon Prime subscription but sure you can pause, rewind and fast forward as well.
Great to see the T20 World Cup enter the US even though it’s not full host rights where they will host some group stages across Florida, Texas and New York with the West Indies getting the majority including all of the Super 8s and Finals. They did beat Bangladesh twice so far during the warm-up games which was really good to hear 2-0, so let’s see if they can at least finish 3rd in Group A if not unexpectedly 2nd with a good group of players including ex-Blackcap Corey Anderson & head coach Stuart Law. But it’s all about the Aussies who hope to steal off yet another World Cup trophy off England albeit the T20 one for the second time after they won the 50-over tournament for the record sixth time late last year v hosts India.
