Sky Sports is gearing up for another big summer of cricket, with the Women’s T20 Cricket World Cup taking centre stage for 2026.
The fact that the tournament is the major draw of the summer shows how far women’s cricket has come, and Sky Sports director of cricket Bryan Henderson told Broadcast Sport that this progress has made an impact on the talent that’s now attracted to the sport.
He said, “[Pundit] Nasser Hussain had a choice of men’s and women’s cricket this summer, and chose the women’s. He’s one of the best broadcasters in world cricket, and I don’t think that would have happened five or 10 years ago. It’s a very good reflection on him as an individual and a very good reflection of how far the women’s game has come.”
Hussain will feature alongside Natasha Farrant and Hannah Wilkes in Sky Sports’ coverage, which will focus on the pre- and post-game analysis while taking a feed from ICC TV, produced by India-based host broadcaster JioStar, for the live action. Henderson explained, “We took the decision a while ago. ICC TV do a bloody good job, they’re incredibly well-resourced, and it just made sense to work with them to create one production rather than spend a lot of money trying to make it 5% better. You’d all be battling over the same kind of smallish school of commentators.”
On commentary, Sky is assisting the ICC by donating some of its talent which will already be onsite to present its pre- and post-match coverage from pitchside for all of England’s games as well as the semi-final and final.
For Henderson, “That means that build-ups, intervals, and post-match will be controlled by us as opposed to ICC TV. We do that to give us a little bit more control. ICC TV will be religiously fair to editorial time to both sides. We make no apologies for concentrating on England.”
The first game in particular will have an hour-long build up, which will also see a unique partnership to celebrate the beginning of the tournament. West End and Broadway production Wicked will deliver the opening performance at Edgbaston on 12 June, ahead of England’s clash with Sri Lanka. The musical’s appearance was brought about by Sky’s head of commercial partnerships, Helen Foster, with Sky owner Comcast also owning Wicked.
Henderson is a big supporter of the initiative, likening it to his parallel job working on Sky’s NFL coverage and the Super Bowl, before saying, “Whilst we’re generally seeing a trend towards sport and entertainment colliding, I think this is the first time that a West End theatre production has been used at a notable sports event.
“It will definitely draw attention to the event, and, frankly, anything is welcome. It was a brilliant idea by Cricket Australia for the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup to have Katy Perry for the for the final at the MCG. They ended up pretty much filling that [100,000-seater] stadium. Whether it was cricket, Katy Perry, or a combination of both, it doesn’t really matter.”
Sky Sports is also doing its best to encourage viewership of the tournament, making England, Scotland and Ireland’s fixtures available to watch for free through its app as well as showing the opening game available on YouTube and Sky One. This means that if a home nation makes it to the final, a partnership with the likes of the BBC or Channel 4, as seen with similar home nation success in the past, is unlikely. Even so, Henderson is hoping for record viewership figures with the widened distribution.
It will have to compete with the England men’s cricket team playing New Zealand at the same time as the tournament, with the second and third tests taking place while it is running. However, Henderson sees this as an opportunity, “The men’s matches are during the day, and the women’s matches are typically in the evening, so there’s a natural flow to the day. It’s a good opportunity to promote the women’s game when there’s a lot of eyeballs on the on the men’s test series.”
The Women’s T20 Cricket World Cup gets underway with the England opening the tournament v Sri Lanka at Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 12 June and leading up to the final at Lord’s on 5 July. Henderson “desperately hopes” England succeed, and is tipping them to go deep in the competition, “They’ve definitely landed in the more favorable of the two groups, so we would strongly expect them to top that group and reach the semifinals. Then, who knows? It’ll almost certainly be one of Australia, India, or South Africa in that semifinal, and then one of one of those three teams in the final. That’s how you would expect it to play out, but you just never know.”
