Rex Clementine in Brisbane for Island,
The national cricket team has gone through some tough times in the last ten weeks and despite all the hard times, they head into the opening Test against Australia here at the Gabba knowing too well that they could make history here. Sri Lanka have never won a Test match in Australia and with the opposition in shambles, following the ball tampering fiasco, this is seen as the perfect opportunity to record the elusive win.
Captains Dinesh Chandimal (R) and Tim Paine pose with the Warne-Murali Test trophy at The Gabba in Brisbane on January 23, 2019, ahead of the first day-night Test match between Australia and Sri Lanka on January 24. ISHARA S. KODIKARA / AFP
Channel Nine Cricket down the Slide
Chris Barrett, in Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November 2016, where the title runs “Cricket’s television ratings plunge as Australia struggle against South Africa”
The Australian team is underperforming and fans are switching off at an alarming level, with the prime-time television audience for the first Test against South Africa evaporating by one-quarter from the corresponding clash in Perth last year against New Zealand. In a concerning development for Cricket Australia as it prepares to begin formal negotiations with networks over the rights to broadcast cricket from 2018 to 2023, OzTAM ratings show viewer numbers have dropped off a cliff since last summer.According to the figures, Channel Nine’s five-city metro audience fell an average of 23 per cent in the third session of the first Test across the five days in Perth – which is played in all-important prime time on the east coast – from 975,000 in the corresponding Test at the WACA Ground last year to 749,000.
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