ICC T20 World Cup LIVE Streaming: Why there is no live streaming of India warm-up matches

On March 10, as Rohit Sharma was on his way to what transpired as an unbeaten 98 against West Indies in India’s first warm-up game of the ICC World T20 2016, the only way that the Indian fans at home could follow the match was through ICC’s live scorecard.

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No TV channel has assumed the responsibility to telecast the matches live with Star Sports, ICC’s official broadcast partner only showing live matches from the qualifying stages of the tournament.

There is no live streaming either for the warm-up games, as Star Sports has been streaming the qualifying matches only on its website and the mobile application.

As a result, the Indian cricket diaspora has been deprived of watching their favourite cricketers in action during the warm-up games. The second warm-up game is set to be played on March 12 against South Africa at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.

The major reason behind such a predicament has been slated to be qualifying round matches being played across two groups to determine the last two entrants to the Super 10 stages of the main tournament.

Any warm-up match doesn’t have an official status and the records or the runs that players make are not counted as international runs/records. The ICC feels that giving such matches a preference over the matches from the qualifying stages, which are international T20s per se, would undermine the importance of the latter.

“We have taken a conscious decision to not telecast the warm-up matches because it takes the gloss away from the tournament matches, which began from March 8,” said Sami-ul-Hasan, the ICC Head of Media and Communications, speaking to Times of India.

“It is something which we have learnt from the previous tournaments. Telecasting the practice ties, which aren't `official', undermines the importance of games in the first round of the competition, which actually are T20 Internationals.”

“We'll review this strategy after the event, and do what is feasible the next time,” he added.

Not just for India, the warm-up matches for any of the participating nations would not be covered live on TV following this decision.

The Super 10 stages begin with the tournament opener between India and New Zealand on March 15 at the VCA Stadium, Nagpur.