How to Watch Live Cricket Matches Online? A Helpful Guide!


As an ardent cricket fan, there are times when I wish I knew where and how to watch my favorite cricket match series online! I’m sure some of you feel the same way. Whether you are traveling outside India, or complete a household chore, or perhaps you are at work and can’t get your head around missing out on all the action, these are times when you definitely wished you knew how to watch cricket matches on the internet!

In order to watch live cricket matches online, you need to know the network that has the broadcasting rights for the specific cricket series in your country. Cricket is streamed on various Over-the-top (OTT) platforms. By knowing the correct network, you can watch the matches through these OTT services.

Cricket is a game watched by many people across the world in many countries. Furthermore, the increasing popularity of Cricket due to the onset of T20 cricket means more and more countries and now playing cricket than perhaps a decade ago!

The recent development in internet technology has provided a platform for the broadcasters to use Over The Top (OTT) platform for streaming a live game to the subscribers.

In this article, we will go through these platforms available in different countries to experience live cricket matches.

How to Watch Live Cricket Matches Online in India?

There are several ways to watch live streaming of cricket matches in India. I’m going to list down the top two options –

1. Disney+ Hotstar

Link to the site – (https://www.hotstar.com/in/disneyplus)

Disney+ Hotstar (Image Credit)

India has a huge following of cricket. Tens of millions watch the game while working, while traveling, and in leisure. Keeping this in mind, Star India Pvt. Ltd. won television broadcast and digital rights for all domestic cricket for the next five years under BCCI. They paid a huge sum of Rs. 6138.1 crore (around USD 944 million).

They have made the live streaming available on Star’s OTT platform Disney + Hotstar. Anyone living in India can subscribe to Disney + Hotstar and watch all the international games played on Indian soil as well as domestic cricket competitions like Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy. 

Once you signup for Disney+Hotstar, you can opt for a plan out of 3

You can also watch some of the cricket matches for FREE (at least for a few minutes).

Disney+ Hotstar VIP is the perfect plan for the subscribers whose aim is only to watch sports. This package comes with F1, Premier League (PL), French & US Open Tennis as well as many badminton, hockey, wrestling, martial arts, table tennis, and kabaddi tournaments.

Team India’s some international tours which are broadcasted by Star India Pvt Ltd. are also available on Disney+ Hotstar VIP package.

Various mobile carrier services like Jio, Vodafone Idea provide special plans for Disney+ Hotstar subscription.

2. Sony Liv

Link to the site – https://www.sonyliv.com

SonyLiv Live streaming (Image Credit)

Sony Liv is another option to watch cricket when Team India is visiting countries like Australia, England, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. Sony Pictures Sports Network has the rights of the international matches played in and between these countries until 2023. Their OTT platform Sony Liv opens the door for the fans to stream live games.

Once you sign in on Sony Liv, there are 3 options for payments- monthly (Rs.299), 6 monthly (Rs. 699) & 1 yearly (Rs. 999).

Various international cricket tournaments including the most iconic Ashes are available to stream on Sony Live along with domestic T20 tournaments like Big Bash League, Mzansi League, World’s only T10 league.

The subscription also includes football leagues from Italy, FA Cup, Euro Cup & UEFA Champions League. National Basketball Association (NBA) can be streamed with Sony Live subscription too. So far these two are the only and best OTT platforms available in India to stream live cricket.

How to Watch Live Cricket Matches Online in England?

1. Sky Sports

Link to the website – https://www.skysports.com/cricket

Sky Sports Live Streaming (Image Credit)

Sky Sports is the answer to all sports enthusiasts in England. Sky Sports have a deal with English Cricket Board (ECB) as well as many cricket boards across the globe to broadcast as well as stream live cricket. They have their own website for OTT platform.

The cricket channels pack is available for £10 a month (31-Days) rolling contract.

You can watch IPL as well as domestic and a few international cricket tournaments with this plan. It doesn’t stop here. You can also watch all the Sky Sports channels for an upgrade of £23 a month to watch other sports with cricket which includes all Sky Sports channels.

2. Sparksport

Link to the website – https://www.sparksport.co.nz/

ECB has recently penned a 4-year deal with New Zealand-based subscription streaming service Spark Sport (https://www.sparksport.co.nz/)  to video stream their domestic club games including The Hundred, County Championship, T20 Vitality Blast as well as English national cricket teams’ home internationals.

The package is available for $24.99/ month for now. Further development is in progress.

How to Watch Live Cricket Matches Online in Australia?

Australia has seen a 51% increase in OTT services since its start. There are various apps and OTT platforms which live stream cricket all across the country. In 2018, Cricket Australia signed a deal with Foxtel and Seven West Media for broadcasting and live streaming. Following is the list of platforms available to watch cricket in Australia.

1. Kayo Sports

Link to the website – https://kayosports.com.au/

Kayo Sports (Image Credit)

Operated by Foxtel, Kayo Sports has live streaming rights of Australian Cricket Team’s domestic & international games as well as of Big Bash League (BBL), IPL, and many other cricket tournaments.

Kayo Sports offers 2 packages for live streaming- A basic pack for AUD 25/month to stream on 2 screens simultaneously and a Premium pack for AUD 35/month.

You can choose the plan as per your needs and enjoy cricket streaming as well all the football leagues, NBA, MMA, Moto GP, and other sports.

How to Watch Live Cricket Matches Online for Free?

Nothing comes for free in this world except the air we breathe. Same is the case of streaming live cricket. But, if you pay for the websites mentioned above to watch live cricket they consider the phone apps as a mode of watching live cricket matches for free.

You just have to log in to the app using the same credentials used for subscribing to live cricket from their respective websites. Disney+ Hotstar, Kayo, Sony Liv, Willow TV are some apps where you can watch live cricket matches online for free.

How to Watch Live Cricket Streaming of IPL?

Image Credit

On 19th September 2020, the most decorated and popular cricket league played on this planet – Indian Premier League clicked off. Various OTT platforms all over the world penned deals with BCCI to stream 60 live games. You can watch IPL in 120 countries with the help of these OTT platforms.

Let’s go through the list

1. Disney+ Hotstar

Link to the website – https://www.hotstar.com/in/disneyplus

I know I already covered Hotstar eariler in the list. But, the cool part about Hotstar is that it not only streams cricket matches in India, but also in other countries.

You can watch live cricket streaming on Hotstar in the following parts of the globe –

India

Disney+ Hotstar is the only available OTT for live streaming IPL in India. Their Rs. 399/year VIP plan has IPL included. You can live stream as well as watch highlights in many languages including Hindi, Tamil, English. They also have a special feature called as Dugout to explain various plays of the game.

The United States of America & Canada

Disney+ Hotstar also provides OTT service for streaming IPL in The USA & Canada. It is available at USD 49.99*/year package.

2. Yupp TV

Link to the website – https://www.yupptv.com/

Yupp TV has all the rights to stream IPL in various regions. These regions include Southeast Asia (excluding Singapore), Malaysia, Europe (Ex United Kingdom, Ireland) & South America, and in Australia.

3. Willow TV

Link to the website – https://www.willow.tv/tvchannel

Willow TV is another TV platform to stream live IPL matches in The USA. Their subscription costs USD 9.99/month.

4. SuperSport

Link to the website – https://supersport.com/

SuperSport, a South African based group, has the streaming rights of IPL in Africa & MENA (the Middle East & North Africa) countries.

A Word of Caution

Many illegal websites stream live matches as well.

The readers are advised to stay clear of such illegal websites. Apart from content quality not being up to the mark these websites are a host of phishing and other malicious links that would install viruses such as Ransomeware that will encrypt the data on your machine.

Such virus attacks can lock you out of the system and you will not be able to get the content back unless you pay a hefty sum.

It is thus advisable to pay the smaller subscription fees instead to have better quality and safe viewing experience.

Final Thoughts

With the growth of cricket all over the world, OTT platforms are a blessing to watch matches anywhere in the world. Hotstar recently broke the record of live streaming with 25.3 million viewers concurrently watching India vs New Zealand World Cup semi-final.

It won’t be a surprise to see many OTT providers jump the wagon in recent future to provide live streaming of cricket matches all over the world. Hope this article helped you to figure out ways to be in touch with the sport you love.

Shrot Katewa

Shrot is an avid cricket fan! He has played and endorsed the sport ever since he was in School. In fact, he played as a professional cricketer represented his state team in National Indoor Cricket Championship held in Pune, India. Shrot loves the game, loves talking to other people who play the game and share his learnings with other interested individuals. He is the founder of CricketMastery.com. This website is a culmination of his desire to help others understand this wonderful Game of Cricket!

Recent Posts