ABSTRACT
2015 was the least eventful men's International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket World Cup (CWC) of the twenty-first century. This chapter examines the cricket's structural and cultural context. It argues that media–sport relationship does not have an essential logic whereby former comes to overwhelm the latter, but is structured by the contextual specificities of a sport and its personnel. Fundamental to an understanding of cricket are three interlinking features: the game's complexity and statistical orientation, structure of its international competition, and its multiple, co-existing, game forms. The structure of international cricket is riven with exclusionary mechanisms. Whilst many sports have variants, relationships between cricket's multiple game forms – namely "Test" or "First Class" cricket, one-day internationals (ODIs) usually consisting of one 50-over innings per side, and most recently Twenty20 cricket, consisting of one 20-overs innings per side – is distinct. The Indian Premier League (IPL), and Twenty20 in general, have become emblematic of the mediatization and commercialization of the game.
