How to Watch Vitality Blast 2026 in the UK

To watch Vitality Blast 2026 in the UK on television you need Sky Sports, which holds the domestic rights and carries the competition on Sky Sports Cricket, with the overflow going to Sky Sports Mix. NOW carries the same coverage on a rolling pass with no contract. But the more useful answer for most people is the second one: every Blast match that Sky does not televise is streamed free by the ECB, so no fixture in the competition is impossible to watch legally in Britain without paying anything.

That two-tier arrangement — a subscription broadcast package sitting on top of a free stream for everything else — is unusual in British sport and it makes the Blast one of the most accessible domestic competitions to follow. This guide covers what is on where, how to find the free streams, the radio coverage, highlights, and what to do about start times.

The quick answer

What you want	Where to get it
Televised group matches	Sky Sports Cricket, with some fixtures on Sky Sports Mix
The same, without a Sky contract	NOW, on a day, month or Sports membership
Every non-televised group match	Free stream on ecb.co.uk and the England Cricket app
Quarter-finals and both Finals Days	Sky Sports Cricket and NOW
Ball-by-ball commentary on every match	BBC local radio, via BBC Sounds
Extended highlights, free	ECB site and Channel 5's streaming service
Live scorecards	ECB match centre or the England Cricket app

What Sky Sports shows

Sky's package covers a selected block of group-stage fixtures across the men's and women's competitions — around twenty-three matches in a typical season — plus the full knockout stage: all four quarter-finals, and both Finals Days.

The selections are made with an eye on the fixtures that draw: Friday evening derbies, matches with title implications late in the group stage, and the double-headers where a women's fixture precedes the men's game at the same ground. The Roses T20 is a fixed point in the schedule for exactly that reason.

Coverage sits on Sky Sports Cricket as the primary channel. When fixtures clash — and on quarter-final night, when four matches start simultaneously, they clash badly — the additional games move to Sky Sports Mix or to the interactive streams within the Sky Sports app. On 15 July 2026, with all four ties running at once, that is how the quarter-finals were carried.

If you already have Sky, the matches are also on Sky Go at no extra cost, on phones, tablets and smart TVs. If you do not, NOW sells the same Sky Sports channels as a pass — a day membership works out well for a single Finals Day and badly across a whole season, so do the arithmetic against a monthly membership if you plan to watch a run of Friday nights.

The free streams, which most people miss

The genuinely useful part of the Blast's coverage is that everything Sky does not show is streamed free.

Non-televised group matches are carried live on ecb.co.uk and through the England Cricket app on iOS and Android, with the counties also pushing the same feeds through their own websites and channels. There is no subscription, no registration paywall and no geographic restriction within the UK.

The production is not Sky's. Expect a small number of fixed cameras rather than a full outside broadcast, on-screen graphics rather than a studio, and commentary that varies from professional to county-enthusiast depending on the ground. What it is not is a poor stream — the picture is broadcast-adequate, and for following your own county through a group stage it is entirely sufficient.

This is also the answer to "how do I watch the Blast for free in the UK", which people often ask expecting the answer to be a workaround. It is not a workaround; it is the ECB's own product.

Radio: the best-value coverage in the competition

BBC local radio provides ball-by-ball commentary on every single Vitality Blast match, televised or not. That is a genuinely remarkable commitment — eighteen counties, well over a hundred group fixtures, plus the knockouts — and it is free.

Commentary comes from the county's own BBC local station, which means a match between two counties usually has two independent commentaries running, one from each side's perspective, and you can pick whichever you prefer. Everything is available through the BBC Sounds app and the BBC Sport website, so you are not restricted to the transmitter area of the station covering your county.

For driving home from work on a Friday evening while the Blast is on, this is the format's natural companion, and county radio commentary teams tend to know their playing staffs far better than a national broadcaster's rotating panel does. The wider picture of radio and television cricket in Britain is covered in the guide to watching cricket in the UK.

Highlights and catch-up

Extended highlights of Blast matches go up free after play on the ECB's website, and free-to-air highlights are carried on Channel 5's streaming service. That is the route for anyone who wants the competition without a Sky subscription and without committing three hours to a live match.

Highlights packages for the Blast are usually cut long by the standards of the format — twenty-over cricket compresses well, and a fifteen-minute edit of a Blast match loses far less than the equivalent edit of a Championship day. For anyone trying to follow the whole competition rather than one county, working through highlights of the previous evening's fixtures is a more realistic habit than trying to watch live.

County social channels also publish short-form clips within minutes of a match — wickets, boundaries and finishes — which is how most of the competition's audience actually consumes it, and it is worth following your county's own accounts if you want that.

Full match replays are generally available on Sky's platforms for subscribers rather than free, so if you want to watch a complete game after the event, the free routes are highlights rather than the whole thing.

Following without watching

Live scorecards for every fixture are published in the ECB's match centres, with separate centres for the men's and women's competitions, and in the England Cricket app. Ball-by-ball text commentary is available from the major cricket sites for every match.

For a competition where a great many people are following a Friday night fixture from a pub or a car rather than a sofa, the app-plus-radio combination is the standard method, and it is free. The same approach works for county cricket generally, where broadcast coverage is thinner still.

When matches are on

The 2026 group stage ran from Friday 22 May to the second week of July, with around 80% of group fixtures deliberately placed on Fridays, Sundays or bank holidays. That concentration is the direct legacy of the market research that created the competition in 2003, which found that scheduling, not the length of the game, was what kept people away — the full story is in the guide to the T20 Blast's history.

Friday fixtures are evening games, finishing under lights. Weekend and bank holiday fixtures are frequently double-headers, with a women's Blast match followed by the men's at the same ground on the same ticket — Trent Bridge, for instance, scheduled all of its 2026 home T20 matchdays that way. Double-headers start considerably earlier in the day than a standalone evening fixture.

Exact start times vary by county and by fixture, and they shift when a match is selected for television. Check the specific fixture on the host county's site or the ECB match centre rather than assuming a standard time, particularly if you are planning to arrive after work.

The knockouts are compressed into a single week: quarter-finals on one midweek evening, women's Finals Day on the Friday and men's Finals Day on the Saturday. In 2026 that was 15, 17 and 18 July, with the men's day at Edgbaston covered in full in the Finals Day guide.

Which device, which app

• Smart TV or set-top box: Sky Q/Glass for subscribers; the NOW app on most modern televisions, Fire TV, Roku and games consoles; the ECB's free streams play in the TV's browser on some sets but are more reliably cast from a phone.
• Phone and tablet: Sky Go for Sky subscribers, NOW for everyone else, the England Cricket app for free streams and scores, BBC Sounds for radio.
• Laptop: all of the above in a browser, including ecb.co.uk for the free streams, which is the least fiddly route.
• Casting: the free ECB streams cast to Chromecast and AirPlay from a phone browser, which is how most people get them onto a television.

One practical warning that applies to all of it: UK broadcast and ECB streaming rights are territorial. Coverage arrangements outside Britain are entirely different, sold market by market, and a UK-facing free stream will not necessarily be available abroad. If you are travelling, check what is licensed in the country you are in.

Frequently asked questions

What channel is the Vitality Blast on in the UK?

Sky Sports Cricket, with additional fixtures on Sky Sports Mix when matches clash. The same coverage is on NOW without a Sky contract.

Can I watch the Vitality Blast for free in the UK?

Yes. Every match Sky does not televise is streamed free on ecb.co.uk and the England Cricket app. Free extended highlights of televised matches appear on the ECB site and Channel 5's streaming service, and BBC local radio commentates on every fixture free through BBC Sounds.

How many Blast matches are on television?

Sky shows a selected block of group-stage fixtures across the men's and women's competitions — roughly twenty-three in a season — plus all four quarter-finals and both Finals Days.

Is Vitality Blast Finals Day on free-to-air TV?

No. Both Finals Days are live on Sky Sports and NOW. Free-to-air access is via highlights on Channel 5's streaming service and ball-by-ball radio commentary on the BBC.

Is the Blast on BBC radio?

Yes — BBC local radio carries ball-by-ball commentary on every Vitality Blast match, and it is all available nationally through BBC Sounds regardless of where you live.

What time do Vitality Blast matches start?

Friday fixtures are evening games finishing under lights; weekend and bank holiday matches are often earlier double-headers with the women's game first. Times vary by county and change when a match is picked for television, so check the fixture with the host county.

Do I need a TV licence to stream the Blast?

A TV licence is required to watch or stream any live television in the UK, including live sport streamed online, and to use BBC iPlayer at all. BBC Sounds radio does not require one.

Where to go next

If you would rather be at the ground than in front of it, the Blast ticket guide covers how the eighteen counties sell their fixtures and how the Edgbaston ballot works. Coverage of the county summer's other formats runs through the guide to watching the County Championship and, for the international women's game, watching England Women in the UK.

The Blast shares its summer with The Hundred, whose broadcast arrangement is different again, and sits inside the wider structure explained in the English domestic cricket guide. Everything else is collected on the England cricket section and the cricket in England hub.

Sources and method

Broadcast and streaming arrangements above follow what the ECB and Sky Sports published for the 2026 Vitality Blast, including the ECB's own guide to watching, following and listening to the competition. The number of televised matches is given approximately because the selection is confirmed in blocks through the season. Start times are described as scheduling patterns rather than fixed times, because they vary by county and are altered for television. Rights deals are renegotiated periodically and territorial arrangements outside the UK differ entirely — confirm current coverage with the ECB or the broadcaster before relying on it. CricketTaken is independent of the ECB, of any county club and of any broadcaster.