How to Watch Cricket in Australia: TV, Radio, Tickets

Broadcast deals change. They change more often than almost anything else in cricket, and any article that lists the current rights holders will be wrong within a few years. So this one is built the other way round: the structure first, because the structure has been remarkably stable for four decades, and the specifics second, with dates attached so you know how much to trust them.

The short version is that you can watch a great deal of Australian cricket without paying anyone anything, you can hear all of it on the radio for free, and the parts that sit behind a paywall are mostly the parts played overseas.

Why cricket is still on free television

Most countries let the highest bidder take everything. Australia does not, and the reason is a piece of legislation rather than the generosity of broadcasters.

The anti-siphoning provisions in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 maintain a list of events considered significant enough that they should be available to viewers without a subscription. Events on that list cannot be acquired exclusively by a subscription broadcaster unless a free-to-air network has had the opportunity to acquire them first. Australian men's Test matches played in Australia, one-day internationals involving Australia, and World Cup matches have been on that list for a long time.

The list is reviewed periodically and its contents shift. Coverage of women's international cricket, for example, has been argued over during those reviews. But the principle has held since the early 1990s and it is the single most important fact about watching cricket in this country. It is why an Australian can sit down on Boxing Day, turn on a television with no subscription attached, and watch the first ball at the MCG.

Anti-siphoning does not compel a network to broadcast anything. It only gives free-to-air the first opportunity. In practice it has meant that the marquee cricket has been free to watch for as long as most people can remember.

The free-to-air and subscription split

The pattern that has held through the 2020s is a two-partner arrangement. One free-to-air commercial network carries home Test matches, a portion of the Big Bash League, and some limited-overs internationals. One subscription broadcaster carries everything, including the matches the free-to-air partner does not take.

Before that, the arrangement was simpler and lasted much longer. From 1979, after the World Series Cricket dispute was settled, the Nine Network held Australian cricket rights continuously for close to forty years. That coverage shaped how several generations here understand the game: the commentary rhythms, the camera positions, the habit of a Test match being on in the background of a household from late November to January. When the rights moved on at the end of the 2010s, it was genuinely disorienting.

What you can reasonably expect, as of the mid-2020s:

Content	Usual availability
Home men's Tests	Free-to-air and subscription
Home men's ODIs and T20Is	Usually free-to-air, sometimes subscription only
Big Bash League	Split, some matches free-to-air, all on subscription
Women's Big Bash and internationals	Mixed, more on subscription than free-to-air
Sheffield Shield and domestic one-day	Streamed by Cricket Australia, not on broadcast TV
Australia's overseas tours	Subscription, almost always
ICC events	Rights sold separately, usually with a free-to-air component

That last row matters. When Australia tour England, India or South Africa, the rights belong to the host board and are sold into the Australian market separately. Those series have generally sat with the subscription broadcaster. An away Ashes series is not the same proposition as a home one, and it is worth checking before you assume.

Radio, which is still the best way

ABC Radio has broadcast cricket since the 1930s, and for a period in that decade it broadcast Ashes tours of England without anyone from the ABC being in England at all. Cabled scores arrived from the ground, a commentator in a Sydney studio described the play as though watching it, and a pencil was tapped on a block of wood to imitate bat on ball. The synthetic broadcasts were enormously popular and, by all accounts, quite convincing.

The ABC still carries ball-by-ball commentary of Australian international cricket across its local and digital radio networks and through the ABC listen app. It is free, it has no advertising breaks in the middle of an over, and the commentary tradition it has built over ninety years is a genuine national asset. Commercial radio also carries cricket, and the specific stations have changed several times, so check locally.

Two practical notes. Digital television runs several seconds behind radio, so if you want to listen to the radio call while watching the picture you will hear the wicket before you see it. Some viewers use the free-to-air analogue-era trick of muting the television, which now requires accepting a delay of anywhere from five to thirty seconds. There is no clean fix. And the radio is by far the best option for the away tours, because ABC coverage of Australian tours has historically continued even when the television rights sit behind a paywall.

Streaming

Every broadcaster now has a streaming product attached, and for a large number of Australians that is the primary way they watch.

The free-to-air network's catch-up and live streaming platform carries whatever is being broadcast on the main channel, free, with an account. The subscription broadcaster offers both a traditional set-top service and a standalone sports streaming product that can be bought month to month, which is the sensible option if you only want it for a single overseas tour. Both are geo-restricted to Australia.

Cricket Australia streams the domestic competitions that do not get a broadcast slot, including Sheffield Shield matches and the domestic one-day cup. The production is basic and the commentary is sometimes a single voice, but it is free and it is the only way to watch the competition that decides Test selection.

For scores rather than pictures, the Cricket Australia app and the major cricket statistics sites cover everything down to grade level in some states. This site carries records and career data across players, the Big Bash and the Indian Premier League if you want the numbers rather than the vision.

Following from overseas

If you are an Australian abroad, or an overseas fan trying to follow the Australian summer, the position is straightforward but not always cheap.

Rights are sold territory by territory. The broadcaster that holds Australian home international cricket in the United Kingdom is not the same one that holds it in India, the United States or New Zealand, and none of them are the Australian rights holder. The Australian streaming services are geo-restricted and will not work outside the country. The correct first step is to find out who holds the rights in the country you are actually in, which is usually a five-minute search and often turns up a service you already subscribe to.

Radio is the reliable fallback. ABC audio commentary is available internationally through the ABC listen app for a good deal of Australian cricket, though rights restrictions occasionally apply to specific series. It costs nothing, it works on a phone in an airport, and it is a far better experience than a stuttering illegal stream.

Do not build your plans around circumventing geo-blocking. Beyond the terms-of-service question, the streams are unreliable at exactly the moments you care about, and the legitimate options are usually cheaper than people assume once you buy a month rather than a year.

Buying tickets

Cricket Australia sells international tickets through a commercial ticketing agent, and the pattern is consistent across venues.

Tickets are sold by the day for Test matches. You buy for day one, or day three, not for the match as a whole. Day one and day two carry the highest prices, particularly at Melbourne on Boxing Day and Sydney in early January. Days four and five are cheaper and carry the risk of the match finishing early, so read the refund conditions before you buy. For the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, an Ashes summer will sell the first two days months in advance.

Things worth knowing:

• Members' areas at the MCG and SCG belong to the Melbourne Cricket Club and the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust respectively. Waiting lists for both are measured in years or decades. These are not tickets you can buy for a match.
• Big Bash tickets are cheap by the standards of Australian sport and are sold as a normal single-event ticket. Family passes are common, and the competition is deliberately priced to bring children through the gate. Fixtures for the Perth Scorchers, Sydney Sixers, Brisbane Heat and the rest run through December and January.
• Sheffield Shield cricket is free. Walk in, sit where you like. It is the best value cricket in the country and almost nobody takes advantage of it.
• Grade cricket, played across every capital on Saturdays through the summer, is also free and is where a large number of future internationals are playing right now.
• Concession, child and family pricing exists for internationals but varies by venue and match, and the cheapest way into a Test is usually a day-four ticket bought late.

Time zones, and when things actually start

Australia is a wide country and the scheduling reflects it.

During the summer, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT are on Australian Eastern Daylight Time. Queensland does not observe daylight saving and sits an hour behind them. South Australia is thirty minutes behind the eastern daylight zone. Western Australia does not observe daylight saving either and is three hours behind the eastern states through the cricket season.

The practical effect is that a Test starting at 10.30am in Melbourne begins at 7.30am in Perth, and a Big Bash match that starts at 7.15pm in Sydney starts at 4.15pm in the west. Perth-based matches, conversely, finish very late for eastern viewers, which is why west coast fixtures are often scheduled to land in the eastern prime-time slot.

Overseas cricket runs to different clocks again. An Ashes series in England starts play at roughly 8pm on the eastern seaboard, which makes it the most watchable of all overseas tours from an Australian sofa. The IPL evening matches begin around midnight eastern time in April and May. Tours of South Africa and the West Indies fall in the middle of the night.

Going to a match, briefly

Australian grounds are large, hot and mostly uncovered. The MCG holds just over a hundred thousand, the SCG and Adelaide Oval around fifty thousand each, the Gabba and the Perth stadium somewhere between. Sun protection is not optional, particularly for a full day of a Test in January. Most grounds allow you to bring in a limited quantity of food and a sealed water bottle, but the specific conditions vary and are published on each venue's site.

Alcohol limits, bag restrictions and reentry rules differ between states because the venues are run by different trusts and licensed under different state laws. Check the ground rather than assuming the last one you visited applies.

The one thing that will not change

Broadcast partners will keep rotating. Streaming products will be launched, bundled and discontinued. The subscription price will go up.

The anti-siphoning framework, the ABC radio call, and the fact that Australians expect to be able to watch a home Test without paying for it have all survived every rearrangement of the last thirty years. If you want a default assumption that will hold, it is this: home Tests and home World Cup cricket will be somewhere you can find them for free, and everything else is worth a month's subscription bought when you need it.

For the rest of the Australian game, see the cricket in Australia hub, the records behind the national side in Australia's cricket team records, and the bowlers who made the summers worth watching in Australia's greatest fast bowlers. If you would rather test what you already know, try the cricket quiz.