CA in a historic move launches 24*7 channel ‘Cricket Gold’

Cricket Australia in a historic move has launched a 24*7 channel named Cricket Gold which will have videos of more than 12,000 hours from previous decades.

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Cricket Australia is bringing the golden age of Australian cricket back to life for modern viewers. The organization has launched Cricket Gold, a free 24-7 streaming channel showcasing some of the greatest cricket moments in Australian history.

Cricket Australia has invested heavily in preserving, digitizing and cataloguing its extensive archive, covering the past four decades of cricket in Australia, with the aim of making this treasure trove more accessible to fans.

At its launch, Cricket Gold offers over 12,000 hours of archival footage and is available on Samsung TV Plus as a free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel. This marks the first-ever cricket-focused FAST channel in Australia, a rapidly growing broadcasting style with an estimated five million Australians already engaging in this format.

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Initially, Cricket Gold will be exclusively available on Samsung TV Plus, which comes pre-installed on all Samsung smart TVs produced since 2017. The channel will be introduced to audiences in Australia and New Zealand this week, with other markets getting access later in the year.

Various documentaries on Cricket Gold

The channel features a range of content, including documentaries from the CA Films vault, such as “Beyond the Boundary,” “The Record,” “Forged in Fire,” and “2 Nations, 1 Obsession.” It will also offer full match replays and extended highlights packages, ranging from 45 minutes for ODIs to 90 minutes for Tests, covering international and domestic matches played in Australia.

Cricket legends from the past, such as Allan Border, Steve Waugh, Shane Warne, Viv Richards, Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Sachin Tendulkar, will be showcased. Additionally, iconic commentators like Richie Benaud, Bill Lawry and Tony Greig will be part of the broadcasts.

What will Cricket Gold cover first?

The initial programming will focus on the action from the 1980s and 90s, with more recent content, including the dominant men’s cricket of the 2000s and the early careers of current women’s cricket greats like Ellyse Perry, Alyssa Healy and Meg Lanning, coming soon.

Richard Ostroff

Richard Ostroff, CA’s Head of Broadcast and Production, expressed the importance of celebrating cricket’s heritage and making the archive accessible, stating, “Cricket Gold on Samsung will provide a fantastic opportunity to showcase our archive on a platform that has a growing reach in established and new cricket markets.”

Footages of rich history on your TVs and other gadgets

Ostroff further elaborated on how CA has invested huge sums of money to digitalise the footage from previous decades to be able to present this footage in videos. Ostroff said, “Our video archives provide a rich source of Australian Cricket history, We’ve invested heavily over the past few years digitising and cataloguing these precious assets so they can be made available to cricket fans around the world in the best possible condition.”

As the Cricket Gold channel becomes available, cricket fans worldwide can look forward to reliving the history and heritage of cricket through this remarkable collection of iconic moments and legendary performances.

Some of the content on Cricket Gold this week:

  • 1985 World Championship of Cricket (including the first game under lights at the MCG)
  • 1995-96 ODI tri-series with Australia, West Indies and Sri Lanka (including Michael Bevan’s last-ball four)
  • Australia v New Zealand Tests 1985-86 (including Richard Hadlee’s 8-for at the Gabba)
  • India’s Test tour of Australia in 1991-92 (including Sachin Tendulkar’s twin tons)
  • Men’s Ashes 1994-95 (including Shane Warne’s hat-trick and Gabba demolition)
  • Lillee, Chappell and Marsh saying goodbye in 1983-84
  • Curtly Ambrose ripping the Aussies apart in 1992-93