Sunday 21 November 2010

Ashes in the East Indies

Television

For TV in coverage in Indonesia you will probably need to go to a bar or somehow get a Malaysian dish and decoder.

Astro is showing the Ashes on special subscription but of course you need a dish and a decoder and card from Malaysia, and after sales service will be non-existent.

Some Jakarta sports bars (certainly Sportsmans and try Aphrodite, Fez, Mad Dogs, Cazbar etc) now have Astro.

Other options no longer work by all accounts. The KabelVision Star cricket channel 53, TenSports which used to be on TelkomVision and the South African satellite channels are apparently all no longer available in Indonesia. I will be surprised if the Australia channel shows anything.. Someone obviously doesn't want is watching the cricket this time around...

Streaming video

This streaming video link works fairly well and provides a choice of sites to watch - coverage from Hobart via veetle.com was really very good....

http://myp2p.eu/competition.php?competitionid=&part=sports&discipline=cricket

Also try http://www.crictime.com/ - but too many ads for my liking

Radio

Shortwave

Radio Australia normally plays ABC Grandstand during Ashes Tests - check their website for frequencies - but no guarantees they will this time around as they will probably stream audio on the web. You'll need a good SW radio and a degree of luck and patience.

Steaming audio

This should be good. You can pick up streaming audio using a PC or Internet radio. An iPod touch or iPad with the superb £1 TuneIn app works brilliantly as a high quality portable internet radio (using wifi) and can be used in Starbucks or wherever. An iPhone or 3G iPad can stream audio reasonably well without wifi if you have a good signal.

ABC stream cricket audio on www.abc.net.au/cricket, but this won't work for me in Indonesia. On the TuneIn app the station is ABC Specials Net 5 and this is working in Indonesia. If you are using a PC another working source with plenty of airtime from the ABC feed is http://radiosport.co.nz/ListenLive/

Unfortunately BBC TMS only works if the BBC think your PC is in the UK. A VPN (costly) or "ExpatShield" installed may give you a UK IP address. Many have succeeded with ExpatShield but it doesn't work for me as it gives me a US address for some reason.Good luck there!

Score and online text commentary

Other sources... the usual suspects are... Cricinfo, guardian.co.uk and the BBC... Or ABC and the CA webiste if you're more inclined to an Australian perspective.

On Twitter I suggest you follow @aggersashes, @aggerscricket, @ellaw368 and @east_indies, at least if you are a Pom... or follow the hashtag #Ashes to find other sources.

william.symonds@gmail.com (twitter @east_indies)