So I've spent the last three days looking at, or for, clips of players batting. Mostly I am looking for one shot they play. It should not be a hard thing.

It is hard because cricket boards take down most newer cricket highlights collated by fans.

So other than Virat (who there is probably too much content for the Boards to catch up too) it is really difficult to find a collection of Kane Williamson back foot cover drives or Joe Root cut shots.

You can find some of these shots buried in highlights packages, but most highlights packages are really dull. The ECB ones seem to involve a lot of players walking on and off the ground for instance, and they are presented in a linear fashion as straight as possible.

Now the big 3 boards have done some cool stuff with video, this from the BCCI on Gill/Virat is nice, the ECB with their county stuff and CA have been using it very well to produce the kind of content younger fans who actually use youtube want. http://www.bcci.tv/videos/id/6097/virat-kohli-invents-short-arm-jab-shubman-gill-reproduces-it

But boards aren’t fans, and they can never upload as much content as fans could. And they also can’t do things like make a spin bowling channel, or a bouncer channel, or a death overs channel, etc.

The NBA largely turn a blind eye to copyright infringements on YouTube (as long as it is not live footage) because they see it as marketing. https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2016/02/09/nba-highlight-videos-clips-youtube-legality

So when you search for Steph Curry transition/passes/cross overs/step back/dunking/ball screens you get bunches of fan videos on each

Cricket fans don’t do this much, Virat (and sometimes Malinga aside), it is hard to find many, if any of this style of video. And that is because it takes time to put this together, and what is the point if boards take them straight down.

I understand why boards think this way, they're protecting what can make them an amount of money. Though I’d argue that it’s so small the marketing would be worth more. We're told that young people don’t find cricket exciting, and yet one way to grab young people is taken away.

I have said this before, @robelinda, and the many Robelinda’s out there, do an incredible job for cricket. People like this reach new fans in a way that cricket boards dream of.

In a perfect world people who want to spend the time editing this stuff could do it with the board’s consent, or at least an agreed blind eye. Or even doing it via a media maker run by the board.

Cricket has always taken a protectionist view, where in truth, the best advert for the game is the passion of the fans and the game itself. Hiring copyright companies to take down fan inspired content is a short term mistake that has long term implications.

Anyway, I’m off to watch Shai Hope play a back foot off drive.

After oposting this I was contacted by a major cricket board to potentially “have a chat” about it - that never happened. But I’ve had chats with many administrators over the years who generally agree with me. But it just never goes anywhere.

So perhaps what we need is more administrators like @EddingsEarl who actually watch this footage and get what it can do. Every clip online is an ad for our game and the companies who cover it. It’s not a violation, it’s a veneration.

Why we should be allowed - and encouraged - to share sports clips online https://wickets.substack.com/p/sharing-sport