MUMBAI: Discovery Communications branded sports channel DSport will broadcast live select games of the upcoming Afghanistan–Ireland ICC cricket series.
The series will be played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, from Thursday, 21st February till 19th March.
The series starts with the T20 games, the first of which would be played on Thursday, and will be telecast live from 6:30 pm onwards.
This will be the second time when Afghanistan and Ireland play a series against each other. In their last encounter when Ireland hosted Afghanistan, the latter defeated them in both the T20 series as well as the ODI’s.
DSport will telecast the 1st & 2nd T20 matches out of the three and 1st, 3rd and 4th ODI out of the five match series.
PSL pullout to cost dear: DSport
On an indirectly related note, DSport recently suspended the telecast of the Pakistan Super League (it had India territory rights) in support of the 42 CRPF personnel killed in the Pulwama terror attacks that had the imprint of the Pakistan deep state written all over it.
DSport expects to have a significant negative commercial impact after it decided not to air the PSL in India in the wake of the attack. “There will be a commercial impact no doubt… In terms of the existing contracted deals with commercial advertisers, sponsors plus we have paid rights fees for the tournament. But those are commercial interests secondary to national interests at times like these, we have to take that call,” DSport managing director and chief executive officer RC Venkateish had told PTI. He, however, declined to reveal the rights fee for the league.
DSport, the official broadcaster for PSL in India decided to pull the plug on its telecast of the T20 cricket tournament from February 16. “We have suspended the broadcast, so we will not be showing the remainder of the tournament. Given the terror attack and the national sentiment outpouring of all the grief, it was not appropriate for us to show this telecast,” Venkateish said.
The six-team tournament league commenced on February 14 in Dubai, concludes on March 17 but the broadcaster discontinued the telecast in India after two days.
“We have a significant commercial impact because the rights fees have already been paid. Since we broadcast only two days of one month of the telecast, before we decided to pull the plug, so the advertisers who had come on board, they won’t be getting the exposure and we won’t be getting revenue for that. But that’s alright. It’s not a big deal…When we pulled the telecast, we pulled it. It’s now a commercial liability that we have for the advertisers,” Venkateish told PTI.
PSL production
Two days after IMG-Reliance pulled out of its deal to produce television coverage of the PSL, a replacement for the remainder of the tournament has been found. The PCB declared Tuesday that a consortium of Blitz and Trans Group will produce TV coverage throughout the course of this season’s PSL from now on.
“The Pakistan Cricket Board today (Tuesday) announced the consortium of Blitz and Trans Group as the new live production partner for the HBL Pakistan Super League 2019,” the PCB said in a press release. “Blitz are the PCB’s broadcast partners in Pakistan, while Trans Group are the event management partners.
“Blitz and Trans Group will start their coverage when the matches resume on Wednesday, 20 February, and will continue to provide the same high quality coverage which the followers experienced in the earlier games of the event,” the PCB stated.
