''Cricket AM'' is a Saturday-morning

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

-based

television programme A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platf ...

that was broadcast in the United Kingdom on

Sky Sports 1 Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

. It began broadcasting in May 2006, and is largely based on its successful

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

-related counterpart ''

Soccer AM ''Soccer AM'' was a British football-based comedy talk show, produced by Sky Sports. It aired from 20 August 1994 to 27 May 2023 on Sky Showcase, Sky Sports Premier League and Sky Sports Football. From 2010, the programme was put on a short b ...

'', as a replacement during the football off-season. The show lasts for 90 minutes and is presented by Matt Floyd, who has taken over from Simon Thomas, and

Sarah-Jane Mee Sarah-Jane Mee (born 10 July 1978) is a Sky News presenter and the anchor of ''The Sarah-Jane Mee Show''. From October 2016 until October 2019, Mee anchored ''Sunrise''. Career After graduating from the University of Manchester, Mee joined Sky ...

, the latter taking over from

Anita Rani Anita Rani Nazran (born 25 October 1977), better known as Anita Rani, is a British radio and television presenter. Early life Rani was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and grew up in Heaton, West Yorkshire, Heaton and Odsal. Her parents were ...

. During the English Cricket Season either an England test or game or a County Cricket game followed the programme. The programme was last broadcast in 2013, and Sky confirmed it would not return for the 2014 season.

Features

The show features a range of regular cricket-related programming features. Studio guests include past and present cricketers, and musicians with an interest in cricket. Aside from results, previews and commentary on ongoing cricket, there are a number of regular studio features on the show, including ''Ready Steady Freddie'', a segment featuring prominent

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

all-rounder An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a handful of batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are cons ...

Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff competing against professionals in a number of different sports. Freddie has competed against

Ricky Hatton Richard John Hatton (born 6 October 1978) is a British former professional boxer who competed between 1997 and 2012, and has since worked as a boxing promoter and boxing trainer, trainer. During his boxing career he held multiple world champi ...

at boxing,

Joey Barton Joseph Anthony Barton (born 2 September 1982) is an English professional football manager and former player who played as a midfielder. Barton made 269 appearances in the Premier League, including 130 for Manchester City; he was most recentl ...

at football, and has played

table tennis Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the Tennis court, court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of ...

tenpin bowling Tenpin bowling is a type of bowling in which a bowler bowling form, rolls a bowling ball down a wood or synthetic lane toward ten pins positioned Tetractys, evenly in four rows in an equilateral triangle. The goal is to knock down all ten Bowlin ...

archery Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a Bow and arrow, bow to shooting, shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

and

darts Darts is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small projectile point, sharp-pointed projectile, projectiles known as dart (missile), darts at a round shooting target, target known as a #Dartboard, dartboard. Point ...

against world champion

Phil "The Power" Taylor Philip Douglas Taylor (born 13 August 1960) is an English former professional darts player. Nicknamed "the Power", he dominated darts across three decades and is widely considered the greatest darts player of all time, having won 214 profession ...

, with mixed success. Another regular feature has two animated characters ("Willow and "Stumpy") explaining unusual rules or jargon. 'Champagne Cork' features Hampshire's

Dominic Cork Dominic Gerald Cork (born 7 August 1971) is a former English county and international cricketer. Cork was a right-handed lower-order batsman who bowled right-arm fast-medium, and was renowned for his swing and seam control. In 1995, he took ...

looking back at the best moments of the past seven days, also there is a Stat of the Week, presented by the Sky Sport Statistician Benedict Bermange, while one of the Sky Sports commentary team is sitting behind him looking distinctly unimpressed. The show mirrors ''Soccer AM'' very closely in many regards; the ''Luther Blissett Stand'' was renamed as the

Gary Pratt Gary Joseph Pratt (born 22 December 1981) is an English former professional cricketer, who played as a left-handed batsman but also bowled right-arm off breaks. He is best known for running out Australia captain Ricky Ponting having come on ...

cricket

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings; * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

, (2006). It was subsequently renamed as the

Dwayne Leverock Russell Dwayne Mark Leverock (born 14 July 1971) is a Bermudian former cricketer. He also served as a policeman and prison van driver. He was popularly nicknamed by his teammates as "Sluggo" during his playing days. Living above an Indian res ...

(2007) and the

Jesse Ryder Jesse Daniel Ryder (born 6 August 1984) is a former international New Zealand cricketer, who played all forms of the game. He was a middle-order batsman for Tests and an opening batsman in ODIs. Ryder also bowled useful medium-pace. Ryder previ ...

Pavilion for the 2008 season. In 2011, it has been renamed the

Douglas Jardine Douglas Robert Jardine ( 1900 – 1958) was a Scottish cricketer who played 22 Test matches for England, captaining the side in 15 of those matches between 1931 and 1934. A right-handed batsman, he is best known for captaining the English ...

Pavilion. The pavilion is filled by the members of a club cricket team, who compete in a

bowl-out A bowl-out (sometimes termed a bowl-off) was used as a tiebreaker in various forms of limited overs cricket to decide a match that would otherwise end in a result (cricket)#Tie, tie. Five bowlers from each side deliver one or two balls each at a ...

in the outdoor car park at the end of the show. ''Throw Time'', a feature in which county cricket teams were visited and contested to throw a ball at the stumps with their "wrong" hand, closely resembled ''Soccer AMs ''Crossbar Challenge''. In 2009, two weekly features called 'Ultimate Sportsman' and 'Brain + Brawn' were introduced. In 'Ultimate Sportsman', three county professionals all from the same team compete to become the ultimate sportsman. A penalty shootout, a golf pitching challenge and a 3 dart throw are completed, and the player with the most points after this is the winner. In 'Brain + Brawn', two players from the same team attempt to score as many points as possible. One player has to answer quiz questions, while the other must hold a 5 kg dumbbell with their arm straight and horizontal to the body. Time ends when the weight cannot be held for any longer.

References

External links

Cricket AM (Sky Sports)
* {{Sky Sports 2006 British television series debuts 2013 British television series endings 2000s British sports television series 2010s British sports television series Sky Sports original programming British English-language television shows