''Cricket on 5'' is a UK television programme on Channel 5 showing highlights of England's Test cricket,

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

s (ODI) and Twenty20 Internationals (T20I). The programme was produced by Sunset & Vine.

Background

In December 2004, it was announced that Channel 4 would lose the broadcasting rights to live broadcasts of Test cricket after the end of the

2005 Ashes The 2005 Ashes series was that year's edition of the long-standing cricket rivalry between England and Australia. Starting on 21 July 2005, England and Australia played five Tests, with the Ashes held by Australia as the most recent victors. The ...

, with live coverage being awarded to Sky Sports exclusively. Initially, the England and Wales ECB had announced that they were contemplating sharing the rights between Sky and Channel 4, but ultimately awarded the contract exclusively to Sky Sports. Concurrently, the ECB announced that Channel 5 had gained the broadcast rights to highlights of all test, ODI and T20I cricket. However, unlike the coverage by Channel 4, the contract did not include coverage of domestic cricket (County Cricket, or T20 Finals' Day). Channel 5 was the only broadcaster to bid for the rights to the highlights despite not having broadcast cricket previously. In 2012, Channel 5 extended its contract until 2017. This was subsequently extended by a further two years, until 2019, after which highlights and additional rights were transferred to the BBC.

Team

* Mark Nicholas (2006–2019) * Geoffrey Boycott (2006–2019) * Simon Hughes (2006–2017) * Michael Vaughan (2009–2019) * Alec Stewart (2007–2009) * Alison Mitchell (2018–2019) ''Cricket on 5'' initially took most of the personnel from Channel 4, keeping award-winning anchor Mark Nicholas along with analysts Simon Hughes and Geoffrey Boycott. The commentating team usually included a fourth commentator from the opposing country, for example Ian Bishop when England took on the West Indies and

Matthew Hayden Matthew Lawrence Hayden (born 29 October 1971) is an Australian cricket commentator and former cricketer. His career spanned fifteen years. Hayden was a powerful and aggressive left-handed batting order (cricket)#opening batsman, opening batsm ...

when England took on

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. For the

2009 Ashes series The 2009 Ashes series was that year's edition of the long-standing and storied cricket rivalry between England and Australia, and was part of the Australian cricket tour of England in 2009. Starting on 8 July 2009, England and Australia played fi ...

, legendary Australian commentator, Richie Benaud joined the team. Former England captain Michael Vaughan joined the show in 2010. Sunil Gavaskar and Sourav Ganguly joined the team when India toured England in 2018, and Mitchell Johnson and Mike Hussey joined the team for the

2019 Ashes series The 2019 Ashes series (officially the Specsavers Ashes Series for sponsorship reasons) was a series of Test cricket matches played between England and Australia for The Ashes in August and September 2019. The venues were Edgbaston, Lord's, Hea ...

Running time

Initially, from 2006 to 2011, the programme was broadcast between 7.15pm to 8pm (45 minute running time). After 2011, the show was broadcast from 7pm to 8pm (60 minute runtime), which allowed for more coverage once advertisement breaks had been accounted for. For a day/night game, coverage was shown at 12am – 1am.

Production

''Cricket on 5'' was produced by Sunset & Vine, a specialist sports production company who also produced award-winning live coverage of England Test matches on Channel 4 from 1999 to 2005.

End

In June 2017 it was announced that BBC Sport had secured the rights to be the free-to-air partner of the ECB from 2020. The BBC will cover 11 live matches from

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, 8 matches from the women's domestic T20 competition, 2 Live England Men's T20 Internationals, and 2 Live Women's T20 Internationals. The BBC also secured the rights held by Channel 5 and will cover highlights of England Men's & Women's teams Test Matches, ODI, and T20 internationals alongside live radio rights and clip rights for the BBC Sport website. The final episode of ''Cricket on 5'' highlighted England's win at the last Ashes test of the

. The programme ended with all members of the presenting team in front of the camera, thanking the viewers, and ending the association of Channel 5 with cricket. England Captain Joe Root also thanked Channel 5 for their support over 13 years.

References

{{reflist 2006 British television series debuts 2019 British television series endings 2000s British sports television series 2010s British sports television series Channel 5 (British TV channel) original programming English-language television shows