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The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have changed the timings for England's floodlit T20Is against India to maximise TV viewership, shifting from the initial 6.30 pm local time (11 pm IST) to 5.30 pm (10 pm IST).
Team India will be touring England for eight white-ball games, including three ODIs and five T20Is from July 1-19, as per ESPNCricinfo. The three evening matches of the T20I leg of the series have been shifted to start an hour earlier, after discussions with the broadcasters. The start time for England's home matches is finalised after consultations between the ECB, venues, opposition board involved and domestic/overseas broadcasters, here in this case, Sky Sports (UK) and the Sony Sports Network (India). The change in the start time of 6:30 PM, which had become a standard start time in recent seasons, highlights ECB's reliance on "high-value broadcast series", especially the ones featuring India, which was revealed in the recently published financial report of ECB. ECB is projected to register a profit this year due to India's tour, but anticipates losses in 2027 despite the men's team playing the highly anticipated Ashes series against Australia at home. "Attention should be drawn to the fact that the ECB's revenues are inherently cyclical, reflecting the scheduling of high-value broadcast series by opposition," the report said as quoted by ESPNCricinfo. The tickets for the tour went on sale last year, with all three ODIs, a format receiving a popularity boost by the presence of Indian superstars Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, sold out, and only a few hundred T20Is tickets remain. Sunset during the peak English summer takes place after 9 PM, meaning all five T20Is could be completed after floodlights come into play. Indian squad for the T20I series, a 16-man strong line-up featuring 15-year-old sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and newly-appointed skipper Shreyas Iyer, who is replacing the T20 World Cup-winning skipper Suryakumar Yadav. Cricket Ireland has also experienced an uptick in interest in their two home T20Is against India on June 26 and 28, which could see Sooryavanshi make his international debut, becoming the youngest Indian to do so, breaking legend Sachin Tendulkar's record, which has been intact since 1989. Both matches were sold out before India announced the squad, with the Civil Service ground at Stormont in Belfast set to operate at a capacity of around 4,500. (ANI)
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