Cricket chiefs slammed over deal with Sky

England cricket bosses are under fire again for having sold off the game's TV rights to Sky.

The deal, which comes into effect next May and will last until after the 2009 season, means no live cricket, international or domestic, on terrestrial television.

But while senior England Cricket Board officials continue to talk up their broadcast package, and highlight the £220million it will bring into the game over the next four years, an independent pressure group has described the arrangement as "appalling" and "breathtakingly shortsighted".

The Sports Nexus organisation today publishes its latest report on the state of cricket, coinciding with the ECB's annual meeting at Lord's.

It also releases findings from a YouGov poll, conducted while England were thrashing Bangladesh at Lord's, which suggest members of the public "interested in cricket" share the group's main area of concern.

Some 68 per cent of those questioned believe the TV deal is bad for the game in this country.

Sports Nexus, founded in 2003 with the aim of acting as an independent watchdog, goes further. Having published a damning report on cricket last year, the group is far more complimentary now and says it is "delighted the ECB has embraced a number of proposals for change" in the freshly released strategic plan for 2005 to 2009.

But the authors of today's report add: "A history of myopia and internal failure has not been dissipated by the recent deal with Sky. We see the recent sell-out of television rights as breathtakingly short-sighted.

"At a time of success for our national side, when audiences are increasing as a result, the ECB has withdrawn access to the vast majority of the viewing public.