The World Cup can inspire... but it needs to be made as visible as possible by the ECB and the media

SAM MORSHEAD: Over the course of the past seven days, a fresh, exciting new image for cricket has been spread across our smartphone and laptop screens; It made one heck of an impact. This summer can, too. If we all play our part

It still seems absurd that a major sport’s biggest global competition is hidden away behind a paywall.

The football and rugby union World Cups both have pride of place on free-to-air television and their accompanying online platforms, yet cricket’s showpiece event - in the UK - is restricted to Sky Sports subscribers, night owls who will happily stay up until midnight for the Channel 4 highlights, and micro-snippets posted to social media.

For fans who want to keep up-to-date with the action, the latter option is at least some sort of compromise but 20-second morsels on a two-by-five-inch screen do not an atmosphere create.

To generate fever and fervour, matches need community. We saw that at the football World Cup last year, when hundreds of thousands piggybacked on the English national side’s success in Russia to fill parks and pubs and front rooms and village halls; men, women and kids, many of whom might previously have thought of assembled groups of football fans as a good reason to cross the road.

^{Sky Sports will be carrying the tournament}

Any TV that could host the tournament did host the tournament - I was involved in a club friendly in Wiltshire during the Russia-Spain quarter-final, where tea was delayed for the spot-kicks. Twenty-two of us - some in dirtied whites, others padded up and ready to bat - huddled around a crackly screen with an interrupted picture, drawn by the drama of sport.

This World Cup cannot do that, in this country at least, not because the stories are less dramatic but because the drama is hidden.

Many clubs cannot afford the cost of a public Sky Sports license and the same is true with pubs and bars. The ECB have plans to make Sky available to these institutions at a cut price and there will be establishments that carry the games, of course, but a fraction of the number which carried the Three Lions’ journey last summer.

It is incumbent on the rights sellers, then, to come to an agreement to put at least a handful of the competition’s headline matches on free-to-air platforms.

WORLD CUP PORTAL: Your one-stop shop for the summer spectacular

The Football Association are already making such advances with regards the Nations League final on June 9 - should England be involved in the game in Portugal, the FA wants as many people back home to be able to see it as possible.

On June 1, BT Sport will broadcast the Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham for free both on TV and online.

Cricket must follow suit. Currently, there are indications that some matches will be taken onto Sky Sports Mix, but that channel is still only available to those with a Sky subscription. Much more can and should be done to take the spectacle to the masses.

There is so much emphasis at present on the need to open cricket’s gates to a new audience, yet the World Cup remains behind lock and key, accessible only to those with a spare £40 each month in their back pocket.

Football fans pack out Hyde Park for the World Cup last summer

The opening game between England and South Africa, India’s meeting with Pakistan at Old Trafford, England and Australia’s clash at Lord’s, both semi-finals and the final should be streamable without cost and made available for free on a platform which allows pubs and public spaces the opportunity to amplify the story.

Not doing so, while simultaneously rewriting the constitution of the domestic game in pursuit of a broader audience, would be frustratingly hypocritical.

That’s not to say we in the media are helpless when it comes to playing a part this summer.

Cricket does not get the column inches it once did, in an industry now dominated by football.

It had been hoped that a summer featuring a home World Cup and Ashes would give the sport the best possible opportunity to usurp its more popular cousin on back pages and above the fold online, but a look at the schedule suggests that will be much harder than first thought.

The night before the World Cup begins, for instance, two English football clubs - Arsenal and Chelsea - meet in the Europa League final.

The first Saturday of the tournament clashes with the Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham.

England’s match against Bangladesh in Cardiff falls neatly between the Nations League semi-finals and final.

Virat Kohli and Eoin Morgan at a pre-tournament press conference

The Women’s World Cup kicks off in France on June 7, with England playing group games on June 9, 14 and 19.

Ignoring for a moment the fact that anyone will be able to watch the vast majority of these matches without charge, it is inevitable that substantial media focus will be given to all of them as well.

Major national newspapers and websites can do their part by ensuring cricket does not get lost in football’s swirling whirlpool. We in the media can berate the game’s administrators all we like for failing the game all we like but responsibility lies on our shoulders, too.

Let’s not set a weak example.

Over the course of the past seven days, a fresh, exciting new image for cricket has been spread across our smartphone and laptop screens - edgy, invigorating adverts from New Balance, Red Bull and England Cricket pushing the sport as a gritty urban phenomenon rather than a leafy pastime; a bewitching mix of Tube trains, abandoned warehouses, light sabres, video games, centurions and drums.

It made one heck of an impact. This summer can, too. If we all play our part.

Our coverage of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 is brought to you in association with Cricket 19, the official video game of the Ashes. Pre-order your copy now at Amazon.co.uk