England and India have played six limited-overs games; now they move on to the five-Test series. And you can watch all of it by following the instructions in this article. The next match is:
4th Test, 30 August-3 Sep, starting at 11am each day
Cricket fans may also like to know how to watch the IPL, although that won’t come back until spring 2018. For the latest internationals, see How to watch the Cricket World Cup.
Match schedule
All times are current UK time, ie BST.
T20s
Tues 3 July, 5.30pm UK time: 1st T20 at Old Trafford. India won by 8 wicketsFri 6 July, 5.30pm: 2nd T20 at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff. England won by 5 wicketsSun 8 July, 2pm: 3rd T20 at Bristol County Ground. India won by 7 wickets
ODIs
Thu 12 July, 12.30pm: 1st ODI at Trent Bridge. India won by 8 wicketsSat 14 July, 11am: 2nd ODI at Lord’s. England won by 86 runsTue 17 July, 12.30pm: 3rd ODI at Headingley. England won by 8 wickets
Test matches
1-5 Aug, 11am each day: 1st Test at Edgbaston. England won by 31 runs9-13 Aug, 11am: 2nd Test at Lord’s. England won by an innings and 159 runs18-22 Aug, 11am: 3rd Test at Trent Bridge30 Aug-3 Sep, 11am: 4th Test at the Ageas Bowl, Southampton7-11 Sep, 11am: 5th Test at the Oval
How to watch on Sky Sports
For live coverage of the England vs India cricket matches you need to be watching Sky Sports. Test match buildup starts at 10am or 10.30am each day on Sky Sports Cricket, although the action doesn’t begin until 11am. Highlights of the day’s play are shown at 10.15pm or 10.30pm on the same channel, and then again at 9am before the next day’s play begins. Check the schedule for details. Sky newcomers can get a basic package from £20 per month, and Sky Sports costs an extra £18 on top. Similarly, existing Sky customers can add Sky Sports to their package for £18 per month. Click here to peruse Sky’s sport packages.
Sky Q
The basic Sky Sports packages above will be more than enough for most cricket fans, but the company offers more expensive upgraded packages with additional features. The Sky Q premium service will show the matches in Ultra HD, and gives subscribers access to multi-camera coverage, 1080 50p Hawk-Eye and extra stats from CricViz. Sky Q starts at £22 per month. If you’re interested, take a look at our guide to Sky Q pricing, bundles and features, or visit the Sky Q website.
How to watch with Now TV
If you’re only interested in this series – or would even be happy to watch just one game – then Now TV may be a better option than signing up for a Sky contract. Now TV lets you pay for Sky Sports on a one-off or pay-as-you-go basis. There are Sky Sports Passes that last for a day, a week or a month. You can then watch via your browser, on the TV app or on the mobile app. A day pass costs £7.99. A week pass costs £12.99, while the month pass costs £33.99 per month and (be warned!) rolls on to the next month if you don’t cancel it. Click here to view Now TV’s Sky Sports Pass packages.
How to use a VPN
A VPN is a useful tool for those who subscribe to a cricket broadcast service and wish to access it while on holiday abroad. A VPN lets you ‘browse from the UK’ and access Sky Sports and Now TV as usual. We tend to recommend the excellent NordVPN, but our best VPN chart rounds up all the best services for accessing UK content from abroad.
How to watch free highlights
If you don’t want to pay for a Sky, Now TV or VPN subscription (one of which is necessary to legally watch the matches live – we don’t condone the use of illegal streams), you can watch highlights of the action for free shortly afterwards. Channel 5 will show around an hour of highlights on the evening of each match. The highlights of the third Test will be shown at 7pm each evening. If you missed the highlights when broadcast you can catch up on Channel 5’s cricket microsite for a limited period. There are also ways to see shorter, individual clips (of a wicket, boundary or other interesting delivery) before Channel 5’s broadcast. If you follow the game on the BBC Sport website, for example, you’ll see occasional video highlights alongside the regular text updates. You can see further short-delay clips on Twitter by following England Cricket. And the ECB posts a short highlights package after the match on its website.
How to listen on the radio
The cricket will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Long Wave and Five Live Sports Extra. You can listen through a digital TV set; on a Sky setup, try channels 0144 and 0145. Or listen online at the BBC Sport website.
How to follow the scores online
It’s easy to get live scores and text updates online for free, but where is the best option? For all-round coverage the BBC Sport website is a good choice, because as mentioned above it lets you listen to live audio at the same time as getting scores and text commentary. The best text commentary for our money, however, comes from Cricinfo, which has extremely detailed statistics and description of every ball. We like to have the BBC open in one tab for the audio and Cricinfo in another for the scores.
How to get updates on your Apple Watch
Last of all we’ll share a tip we use to avoid appearing antisocial at summer barbecues and whatnot. It means you just get a discreet tap on the wrist when a wicket falls, rather than having to continuously check your phone. The best Apple Watch app for this (in our experience) is the official ECB one. Once the match is underway – or indeed slightly before – you can set up notifications. Open the app on your phone and tap on the relevant fixture in the Matches tab. Tap the sharing icon at the top right, then Turn On Push Notifications.
