In this week’s edition of In Search of West Indies Cricket Roger Seymour looks at the origin of the broadcast of live televised Test Cricket from the West Indies.
Prologue
“January 24, 1935 – First day of the Second Test Match [West Indies versus England at the Queen’s Park Oval, Trinidad]: Radio Station VP4Y6 will broadcast Test Cricket for the first time ever in the West Indies. There will be reports at the lunch and tea intervals, and the last hour of play will be carried as live ball-by-ball commentary, followed by a summary of the day’s play. Listeners as far as St Kitts, St Vincent and parts of BG [British Guiana] are expected to receive the broadcast.” (Excerpt from ‘Standing Up to the MCC’ – In Search of West Indies Cricket – 8th May 2016.)
On 23rd September, the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) Final was held at the National Stadium Providence and televised around the world to an estimated audience of 500 million. Today, it is taken for granted that whenever there is international cricket in the Caribbean, one can click on the remote control or swipe one’s iPhone, and voila!! – there’s the cricket telecast. It wasn’t always like this.