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Netflix of cricket archives? Cricket boards are sitting on goldmines

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During the period when the country was in a lockdown and all sporting action, not just in India but across the world, came to a standstill, cricket fans took refuge in the vaults of YouTube videos to quench their thirst for sporting drama. The now-legendary Rob Moody, whose channel 'robelinda2' has become a virtual shrine for cricket fans, provided much relief with his uploads. 

But these unusual times also brought to surface the thirst among cricket fans for watching matches, not just their clips, from the 'good old days.' This made the ICC open up its archives, though whether cricket fans will actually benefit by it remains to be seen. 

The focus also shifted to individual cricket boards and their YouTube channels. While it may be leaking players to the T20 leagues across the world due to a weak financial condition, Cricket West Indies (CWI) has done a great job in letting viewers enjoy the high-quality cricket in its video archives. 

It regularly uploads gold-standard highlights of great performances from the likes of Sir Curtly Ambrose on its YouTube account. Recently, it went even further to stream full matches and innings from classic contests in the past. Last month, viewers were able to watch the entire world-record chase of 418 by West Indies in 2003 against Australia at Antigua. 

Cricket Australia (CA) started doing something similar even earlier. They streamed the entire final day's play from the famous Adelaide Test of 2006 where Ricky Ponting's Australia stole a highly-unexpected win from England. It also streamed an entire ODI from 2004 where a last-over six from Brett Lee won a nail-biting encounter for the hosts against India. 

Apart from these two boards, the English Cricket Board (ECB) too puts out highlights of old matches. However, they are yet to stream entire passages of play, like CA or CWI does, of the most famous matches from the distant past. That's one area where they can certainly improve. 

Unfortunately, other cricket boards haven't followed the example. While Pakistan and South African cricket boards stream their domestic matches live, they haven't yet realised the value of old matches and the nostalgia attached to them. 

Another trick that many boards are missing is capitalising on the nostalgia of millennials. ECB highlights and recordings are mainly from the last decade, or the one before that, at best. But there is a lot of yearning among people to watch cricket from the 1990s. The reason is simple - that period is regarded as a golden era of cricket with nearly a dozen all-time great bowlers in action around the world. 

Cricket fans would salivate at the prospect of watching the likes of Ambrose and Alan Donald at their best in re-runs of cricket contest from 1990s. Another thing to remember is that cricket can only be enjoyed fully when the entire match or innings is replayed. Highlights are never sufficient. One cannot appreciate the metronomic accuracy of Glenn McGrath by just watching his wicket balls or one where he came close to picking up wickets. 

So, its time for cricket boards around the world, especially the richest one of them - Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) - to use its archives to the fullest. In fact, they can even monetise their archives by creating streaming services like Netflix. Just imagine how many fans would like to watch the classic contest between Michael Atherton and Allan Donald at Trent Bridge, or the one between Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne at Bangalore in the same year. 

Cricket boards, who try to monetise every little space on a ground for sponsorship, are sitting on a virtual goldmine without realising it. It's time they woke up.

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