This is a potentially historic year for English cricket, but before they can think about the World Cup and the Ashes England have got a mouthwatering tour of the West Indies: three Test matches, five ODIs and three T20Is. The Windies have a formidable record at home against England and this is a huge challenge.
In this article we explain how to watch the England vs West Indies 2019 cricket matches live on TV (or for free on YouTube), as well as how to catch up with highlights and listen to radio coverage.
Eng vs WI match schedule
It’s a packed schedule. We start with the Tests. (Schedule is in UK time, ie GMT.)
- 1st Test (Barbados): 23-27 Jan, starting 2pm GMT each day. West Indies won by 381 runs
- 2nd Test (Antigua): 31 Jan-4 Feb, 2pm. West Indies won by 10 wickets
- 3rd Test (St Lucia): 9-13 Feb, 2pm. England won by 232 runs. WINDIES TAKE SERIES 2-1
Then the all-important 50-over games (a last chance for fringe players to make a bid for a place in the World Cup squad):
- 1st ODI (Barbados): Wed 20 Feb, 3pm. England won by 6 wickets
- 2nd ODI (Barbados): Fri 22 Feb, 3pm. West Indies won by 26 runs
- 3rd ODI (Grenada): Mon 25 Feb, 1.30pm. No result (rained off)
- 4th ODI (Grenada): Wed 27 Feb, 1.30pm. England won by 29 runs
- 5th ODI (St Lucia): Sat 2 Mar, 3pm. West Indies won by 7 wickets. SERIES DRAWN 2-2
And finally the T20 matches:
- 1st T20I (St Lucia): Tue 5 Mar, 8pm. England won by 4 wickets
- 2nd T20I (St Kitts and Nevis): Fri 8 Mar, 8pm. England won by 137 runs
- 3rd T20I (St Kitts and Nevis): Sun 10 Mar, 8pm
How to watch for free on YouTube
Brilliantly, the West Indies Cricket YouTube channel will be streaming the 3rd T20 live for free.
Coverage starts at 7.45pm. Click here to watch it live.
How to watch on Sky Sports
England vs West Indies 2019 cricket is being shown by Sky Sports in the UK. The matches are shown live on the Sky Sports Cricket channel (you should find this on channel 404), and then again in highlights and analysis.
If you’re new to Sky a basic package starts at £22 per month, and Sky Sports starts at an extra £18 for a selection of sports (or £23 for all of them).
Similarly, existing Sky customers can add Sky Sports to their package for £18 per month.
Click here to look into Sky Sports packages.
Sky Q
The starting prices above relate to Sky’s standard offerings, but the firm’s Sky Q premium service, which starts at £22 per month, adds further features that may be of interest to cricket fans. If you’re interested, have a look at our guide to Sky Q pricing, bundles and features, or jump straight to the Sky Q website.
How to watch with Now TV
If you’re not already a Sky Sports subscriber, and don’t want to commit to a long-term Sky contract for these matches, you should consider Now TV. This lets you pay on a one-off basis instead.
Now TV has a pay-as-you-go Sky Sports Pass option that lets you pay for either a day, week or month of Sky Sports. You can then watch the action for as long as you’ve paid for on your browser, on the TV app or on the mobile app.
A day pass costs £7.99 and lasts 24 hours from purchase. A week pass costs £12.99 and gets you (unsurprisingly) 7 days, while the month pass costs £33.99 per month and rolls on to the next month unless you cancel it. There’s also a mobile pass for £5.99 a month.
Click here to view Now TV’s Sky Sports Pass packages.
How to use a VPN
If you’re a British viewer who is currently abroad and still wants to watch the cricket, you can use a VPN to ‘browse from the UK’ and access Sky Sports and Now TV. NordVPN is our top recommendation, but our best VPN chart rounds up other excellent services for accessing UK content from abroad.
How to watch free highlights
The obvious place to go for comprehensive highlights of England vs West Indies is Sky Sports, but there are free alternatives to be found.
YouTube is your best bet, and two sets of highlights for each of the games (an in-depth package lasting almost an hour, and a bite-sized alternative that lasts a few minutes) can be found on the Windies Cricket channel.
If you can’t wait until the YouTube package is edited and posted, Twitter is a good source of ultrashort highlights in almost real time. We follow four main accounts in hopes that they will post clips of wickets, milestones, pleasant shots and unpleasant sledges – England Cricket, Sky Sports Cricket, Wisden and Cricingif – but the TV rights situation varies by series. In this case Sky Sports appears to be the best one to go for.
How to listen on the radio
TalkSport has the radio rights for this tour. We’ll miss TMS, of course, but feel talkSport did a decent job of the Sri Lanka series so aren’t too put out.
TalkSport has two channels and coverage will be split between them. The primary channel can be found on 1089 or 1053 AM, while talkSport 2 can be found on digital radio or online.
How to follow the score online
The BBC Sport website offers live scores and text updates, but we prefer to use Cricinfo, which has detailed ball-by-ball coverage, stats and charts updated on the fly, and a huge range of articles and videos afterwards.
Author: David Price, Editor
David has loved the iPhone since covering the original 2007 launch; later his obsession expanded to include iPad and Apple Watch. He offers advice to owners (and prospective owners) of these devices.