*Unofficial* New Zealand Black Caps Thread

[Chewie]

They have started the balloting process for these games in the expectation that a crowd will be allowed

 

[nzfan]

Not saying the jab will be prioritized for cricketers but for those that travel in and out of the country. Read that somewhere. Maybe didn't apply to NZ yet but maybe to UK.

I'd expect things to change but maybe not to an extent I think it'll. I don't think the roll out to the entire country would rent been accomplished by June. That's a huge task.

 

[nzfan]

Would be tempted to give Raval another shot if he has a decent second half of the Plunket Shield, but otherwise looks like a good extended squad. Hope Ravindra's shoulder injury isn't going to interfere with his FC schedule this season.

I don't think they'll go back to Raval. They now have too many batters waiting to get it.

The commentators were speaking about history of shoulder injury to Rachin on TV yesterday. Can't find a single reference to it on the net though. It'll be disappointing if it was a serious injury. He's looking so good at the moment. I know from experience a dislocated shoulder and a surgery will mean nearly a year out. Will Young had that last year.

 

[nzfan]

Spark Sport promise to cover all Super Smash Twenty20 matches in future

Cricket fans were left stumped after new broadcaster planned to air all domestic T20 games this season, then didn't.

www.stuff.co.nz

Spark were supposed to cover all the super smash games by the looks of it. Would be really good if they can get the speed gun and RDS or virtual eye whatever they call it. No need for referrals but good to have those gadgets if they are serious about super smash. I think the Virtual eye is from a NZ based company, a Christchurch one in fact. The bloke came up with the idea for America cup but then extended to other sports.

This is a good video of the virtual eye and how it works.

 

[Bahnz]

On the Spark deal, I understand they're releasing their viewership data sometime this week (which must mean they're fairly happy with the numbers). Does anyone know if there are any sources or reports about what kind of ratings/viewership cricket had when it was on Sky?

 

[The Hutt Rec]

I think it’s pretty difficult to get those numbers these days, but here’s some outdated figures from 2011 and 15 (World Cup though) and 1995! Should give a tiny bit of context I guess.

In 2011, when New Zealand made the semi finals of the Cricket World Cup, the average audience on Sky Sport per match that the Black Caps played in was only 67,930 viewers. The highest average audience was 79,530 between New Zealand and Zimbabwe.

In 2015, the Cricket World Cup is in New Zealand and the Black Caps matches are screening on both Sky and their FTA channel, Prime. The opening match between NZ and Sri Lanka had an average audience of 161,280 viewers on Sky and another 145,940 viewers on Prime.

The difference in average audience between the last 2 years is quite considerable.

Back in 1995 (we couldn’t go back any further without someone logging hours in physical paper journals), the most watched match was between New Zealand and Pakistan on the 17th of December. The average audience for that game, was a staggering 602,950 viewers.

Further more, that equated to 19.3% of the entire population of 3.1million viewers.

It’ll be very interesting to see what Spark say.

 

[Bahnz]

Man, it's wild how far cricket has fallen in the national consciousness that a World Cup game featuring arguably NZ's best ever ODI side, played in NZ, got only one half of the audience that watched a prank NZ team playing Pakistan in a pre-World Cup warmup match in the mid-90's. I'm unsure about whether Spark Sport is the right move for cricket, but you can understand NZC's interest in trying alternative avenues in order to find a more sustainable broadcasting model.

 

[nzfan]

100 thousand audience for world cup 2015 can't be quite right. Got to be more than that surely.

 

[Bahnz]

100 thousand audience for world cup 2015 can't be quite right. Got to be more than that surely.

160,000 on Sky and 140,000 on Prime so 300,000 in total.

 

[_Ed_]

160,000 on Sky and 140,000 on Prime so 300,000 in total.

And a few thousand others in pubs etc, you'd imagine.

 

[nzfan]

That's fair numbers just under 10% I guess. Not as a comparison but would like to see what the numbers was like for rugby WC.

 

[honestbharani]

Yay, good to know the BC’s will get some cricket this winter regardless of whether they qualify for the WTC final. Can’t wait to see Jamieson bowl under some leaden English skies with the Duke!

Lol, I know the Black Caps predates Virat Kohli's captaincy tenure but to us Indians, you calling yourselves BCs will never cease not being funny.

 

[honestbharani]

1st LV= Insurance Test vs NZ - Lord's, June 2-6
2nd LV= Insurance Test vs NZ - Edgbaston, June 10-14

WTC final: Lord's, June 18-22

That's..... pretty good preparation if we qualify.

Obviously, its most likely NZ are in that final but on the off chance they aren't, there is also the possibility that England might sneak in. lol. So either way, its good for them.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

That's fair numbers just under 10% I guess. Not as a comparison but would like to see what the numbers was like for rugby WC.

1.2 million for the 2015 rugby world cup final, 2 million for 2011.

 

[nzfan]

1.2 million for the 2015 rugby world cup final, 2 million for 2011.

Not surprised. The 2011 finals had plenty of anticipation and wasn't great for the heart.

Disappointing numbers for cricket though.

 

[Bahnz]

I remember a survey from 2012 that looked at which sports people followed closely over the years from the early 90’s on. Rugby and Cricket obvz dominated the numbers at the beginning with something like 75% and 50% of people respectively following them. By 2012 cricket had collapsed down to about 20%, and loads of other sports had grown to similar levels (eg league basketball rowing etc). Rugby is the only sport that still holds a broader level of appeal.

 

[Bahnz]

I will say the Sky Sports Now app is clearly superior in one respect. It gives you the option to keep watching while using other apps on the phone. Bit of a pain having to periodically stop watching NZ cricket in order to post on CW.

 

[Flem274*]

chromecast?

does sky sport now have a manual quality selector? ****in infuriating that illegal streams give better picture quality than skygo on pc and skygo automatically tries to go for the highest quality, a quality it can't handle even with my fiber net to help it, and you can't stop it from doing so.

 

[nzfan]

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/crick...e-than-a-million-kiwis-tune-in-to-t20-gimmick

More than a million watched Black clash. Shows the power of rugby. Anything attached with rugby sells I reckon. On that account cricket administrators have to answer a lot for it. We likely have one of the best teams fielded ever in cricket and all well liked players as well but we are not seeing the kind of response we should. Standing in a queue at a coffee shop at work a colleague or two spoke about cricket. She said she was glued to the TV watching aus v india last test match. I never knew she watches cricket. I've known her for like 10 years or more. So many guys spoke about that series but have barely ever heard about black caps from them. Gutting knowing how good the team is right now and the next line of cricketers coming up are as thrilling if not better.

There's got to be something done by NZC to bolster following of cricket. I think subcontinent follows our cricket and even super smash more than us. Try to google super smash and majority of the writing will be from overseas in particular sub continent predicting the results for some fantasy league. Sometimes you see ball by ball updates from them but not so much from NZC or the respective provinces. There is no reason why cricket cannot be as well marketed as rugby is particularly now. Why do I feel people knew more about New Zealand cricket in the 90s than now. Growing up all I knew at home was Paul Holmes, Shortland street and cricket on tv in summer. Obviously there were no pay TV then. I'm guessing sky came in the mid 90s with rugby and spread over to other sports. Can't remember exactly and then it went downhill for cricket.

 

[Bahnz]

chromecast?

Not really an option when your SO is monopolising the Tv.

And yep Sky Sports Now allows you to select the quality of the stream (though it only goes up to 1080p). Also it remembers the quality level you set it at, instead of resetting it to the highest quality setting everytime you log in.