Watching cricket online is really the only way for me to see any live cricket. I can’t get Sky, but love cricket … But where to go if you want to watch cricket online? What are the best sites for watching cricket? Do you pay or not?

I have been figuring these things out for myself – and still am – but thought it could also be useful to others, so I wrote this post to share my thoughts on cricket livestreaming.

To pay of not to pay?

That’s the first question. There are a lot of free – and illegal I should add – options available on the internet, which I have used quite a lot in previous seasons.

Over time however, I found them increasingly frustating. While there are no guarantees you actually get to see  any cricket after installing some sort of peer-to-peer video player, there is every chance you’ll end up with a virus, trojan or other crap on your computer. And when you do find a working livestream, the quality is often poor and the connection shaky.

But if you are not to worried about all this, I suggest you visit MyP2P. With several links for every game you will always find one that does work and with their overview of all the different peer-to-peer players, MyP2P is probably the best place to start if you want to watch cricket online for free.

And not just for cricket, MyP2P offers a wide range of sports, including football, rugby and baseball.

However, as I mentioned before, free livestreaming practically always comes with poor quality, an unrealiable uptime and a lot of unwanted ‘extra’s’.

All of which made me switch to paying for livestreams. Starting with the 2009 Ashes, I had a year pass for livestreaming and on demand content on the ecbtv.co.uk website. They offered livestreaming of all England’s home games, but the ECB recently pulled the plug on this service.

Not to worry though, there are alternatives available from Willow TV, Sky, ESPN and Eurosport. So which one of these give us our money’s worth?

Getting your money’s worth

As I wrote earlier, I really like Willow TV. They cover all the major series, all over the world. The quality of the streams is ok (although not good enough to watch at full screen) and they offer a great on demand service.

The pricing is reasonable too; you can watch the entire England vs Bangladash series for 19,95 US dollars (+/- 16,70 Euro).

Next, there is Sky. Sky also covers most international cricket and with their Sky Player, you can follow it all online. And not just the cricket, but you get access to all of Sky’s channels and more.

I have seen a preview of Sky Player on Sky News and the quality of the livestream was a lot better compared to what you get with Willow TV. Unfortunately, Sky Player is only available to those living in the UK and Ireland, so I have never been able to enjoy it.

The costs are about 34 pounds per month, which is fair considering everything you get to watch, but expensive if you are only interested in watching cricket.

A newcomer that offers cricket livestreams is ESPN. They have essentially taken over where the ECB left and offer livestreaming of all of England’s home games. ESPN’s offers great quality for their on demand videos and according to Will Luke their livestreaming is also “astonishingly good”.

ESPN charges a bit more with a series pass for England vs Bangladash costing 24,99 Euro, but if the quality allows for good full screen viewing, I think that is reasonable. Lets not forget that with streaming, better quality means more bandwith which means higher costs.

ESPN’s livestreaming of cricket is only available UK or the United States.

Last in the list is Eurosport. Eurosport broadcasts cricket irregularly and seems to be focussing on the big ICC tournaments like the World Twenty20.

As with Sky, you sign up for a package of channels (Eurosport, Eurosport2 and EurosportNews) and not just the cricket broadcasts.

The quality of the livestreams is ok, but not good enough to watch full screen.  Eurosport is the cheapest of the lot, charging 4,90 Euro per month.

And more ..?

There are probably other sites that offer cricket livestreaming that I have not mentioned. If you know any, please let me know in the comments.

Also, if there is anything else you would like to add on this subject, share it!