Ball by ball commentary, online updates and news reports on all 49 matches played over six weeks in 14 venues across five different time zones: our coverage of the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup is undoubtedly the most ambitious we have ever mounted.
Venues stretch from Perth in Western Australia down to Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand, over 3,000 miles apart.
We are able to bring you this complete coverage of the World Cup through a partnership with ABC Radio in Australia and Radio Sport in New Zealand. It means that we will be covering every ball of the competition for the very first time and servicing all of the BBC’s sports news outlets, despite sending half as many people (24) than we did to cover the 2011 World Cup.
Our team will be providing coverage for BBC Test Match Special, BBC 5 Radio live, BBC TV News, BBC online, BBC Asian Network, BBC World including the language services, BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4 plus BBC Scotland, BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Local Radio.
The Cricket World Cup 1992 team captains
A World Cup being played across Australia and New Zealand brings back lots of memories from the last tournament held in those countries back in 1992. It was the last time England reached the final with a talented all round side beaten at the MCG by an Imran Khan inspired Pakistan.
I remember listening in the early hours of the morning to the heroics of the likes of Ian Botham, Graham Gooch and Neil Fairbrother. It was the first World Cup to feature coloured clothing, white balls and floodlit matches and is often described as the best competition ever staged.
There were plenty of talking points especially the semi-final when a controversial rain rule left South Africa needing 22 runs of 1 ball to win.
Back in 1992 a fresh-faced cricket correspondent was covering his first World Cup. His name Jonathan Agnew and 23 years later Aggers will be leading our team again. He’ll be sharing commentary duties with many familiar TMS names such as Alison Mitchell, Jim Maxwell, Bryan Waddle, Simon Mann, Charles Dagnall, Kevin Howells and Harsha Bhogle. Our team of expert summarisers is also full of TMS favourites including Michael Vaughan, Geoff Boycott, Vic Marks, Jeremy Coney, Graeme Swann and Ebony Rainford-Brent, who won the World Cup with England’s women in Australia.
We also welcome a guest summariser joining us from the quarter final stage with Kevin Pietersen offering his analysis for the first time on the BBC.
Kevin Pietersen, who joins the BBC's team
We’ll have plenty of international names in the commentary box during the event including two people who have lifted the World Cup Trophy as captains: Kapil Dev and Allan Border. Former Ireland captain Alan Lewis will be on hand to provide his analysis on the Ireland team, we’ll have extensive coverage from within the Scotland squad, while BBC Asian Network’s Nikesh Rughani from will be reporting from inside the camp of the current World Cup holders India.
The new BBC World Service Cricket programme Stumped will be broadcast from the World Cup throughout the tournament, and Lee James will host BBC Sportsworld from Australia during the latter stages. There will also be extensive coverage across all the BBC World language services from a small team at the event including BBC Pashto, which will be reporting on the World Cup debut of Afghanistan.
Commentary will be broadcast on digital and online network BBC Radio 5 live Sports Extra with coverage switching online to bbc.co.uk/cricket when there is an overlap of matches. BBC Radio 4 LW will have all the England games plus every match from the quarter final stages.
There will be extensive coverage on BBC Radio 5 live with reports on every game plus programmes live from Australia and New Zealand as well as specials in the build-up to the tournament including 10 moments that Shocked the World Cup and The Greatest World Cup Eleven. There will be a daily World Cup Test Match Special podcast, which will also be broadcast on 5 live Sports Extra after the live action is over.
BBC Sport's Cricket pages will provide their most extensive coverage of a World Cup with text commentary on every match, plus you can now sign-up for cricket score alerts in the BBC Sport mobile app. Stephan Shemilt will also be blogging from the best of the games across Australia and New Zealand.
Like I did back in 1992 you’ll be listening to some of the action tucked up in bed through the night. But the different start times for games actually mean that you’ll be able to hear games across breakfast and late morning, plus for day games in New Zealand we’ll be going on air from 9.45pm.
Running alongside the World Cup England’s women are also in Southern Hemisphere action on a tour of New Zealand and we’ll have coverage throughout including commentary from their ODI series.
We’ll also be bringing you commentary on England’s men’s warm-up games against West Indies and Pakistan next week. But the World Cup begins with a bumper weekend of games including Australia v England at the MCG and India v Pakistan from Adelaide with our coverage starting at 21:45 on the evening of Friday 13 February.
So while the weather at home is wintry let us take you to the warmth of Down Under for what we hope will be a fabulous tournament. Who knows perhaps England could surprise us and go one better than they did back in 1992 and lift the trophy!
