ENGLAND v NEW ZEALAND 1st TEST MATCH DAY 1 EDGBASTON JULY 1 1999 ORIGINAL UK BROADCAST

[@richardhingston6073]

Was this peak cricket? We will never get this back...

[@JoshuaMSP1995]

Amazing stuff! Did you, by any chance, record any of the live coverage, or only the highlights? Thanks.

[@chrismanners9091]

Great to see this era. New Zealand were taken very lightly at the time, even after their very good World Cup performance. They turned out to be a very competitive team. And slightly embarrassingly, our best performer was a Kiwi, and their worst performer was an (out of form) Brit. I think these highlights went out early evening at the time, which was a very impressive commitment to cricket by Channel 4 (maybe less of a commitment to Channel 4 News).

[@labkl253]

Nostalgia through the roof watching this…. Hoping you have the South Africa series from 03 also Darren? The first series I remember going to

[@RiteshJena-q5e]

Finally ✌👏👏, thank you🙏.

[@kavyavijay4953]

Did Channel 4 take over free to air from this year?

[@markhayward7400]

A couple of players made their England debuts here - Chris Read and Aftab Habib - who were discarded by the selectors far too soon. Read was consistently the best wicketkeeper in county cricket at this time. Habib averaged 41 with the bat in his first class career yet he was dropped after just two test matches

[@chrismanners9091]

Habib was a good county player, but don't think he was better than the batsmen who played lots of tests in the early noughties. But two games isn't long enough for anyone, and he would have probably done as well as eg Chris Adams who got 5 tests.

[@AshesHereos]

Did Channel 4 broadcast the 1st test of this series live or was it Sky Sports? I know both channels had an agreement that BSkyB would show at least one England home test each year between '99-'05.

[@dmmordecai7984]

This Test was aired live on Sky.

[@princeroytilakasiri5675]

This was highlights I remember the 1st test on channel 4,, also the first time sky sport was showing test cricket live in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@Mayank-eq3ne]

Wasn’t sky showing live cricket before alongside bbc?