A question for the BBC

BBC television has just announced that it will be showing highlights of the Ashes. It’s great news which partly makes up for the fact that all live action, both Test and one-day, is on Sky, thus bypassing more than half the households in Britain. But there’s a crunch question the Beeb haven’t answered yet. When will the highlights go out?

A day’s Test cricket in Australia ends at breakfast time in Britain, which ought to leave plenty of scope for the schedulers. But it’s reported that Sky, who sold the rights on to the BBC, want to keep the highlights to themselves for most of the day.

This summer, the highlights actually got better: Channel Five showed highlights at 7.15-8pm every day of the seven Tests, sometimes even starting when play was still going on. And they did them well, with Mark Nicholas, Simon Hughes, Geoff Boycott, plenty of action and no gimmicks. Boycott, especially, lends himself to highlights, being incisive but repetitive (“my mother could do better than that”).

The BBC need to put their scheduling where their money is. They must give the highlights a fixed slot, at least 40 minutes long, when the kids are still awake. And they must have commentators who can hit the right note for the fringe viewers that only the Ashes can reach.