Money & Media
DAZN’s first standalone cricket broadcast is Australia–Bangladesh
Two Top End Tests are a small UK rights buy — and a real test of whether cricket belongs on a football-and-combat platform while Cricket Australia’s bigger packages stay in play.
Pat Cummins during Australia’s first Test against West Indies at Perth Stadium in December 2022. Cummins captains Australia against Bangladesh in Darwin and Mackay — the series DAZN is carrying as its first standalone international cricket broadcast in the UK.
Photo: Calistemon / CC BY-SA 4.0
DAZN has bought the UK rights to Australia’s two-Test series against Bangladesh — Darwin opened Aug. 13 at Marrara, with Mackay from Aug. 22 — in what The Guardian reported as the platform’s first standalone international cricket broadcast. Football and combat sports still define the brand. This fortnight is the cricket experiment.
The buy is deliberately small. Cricket Australia wanted a longer UK rights package and instead sold Bangladesh as a one-off while talks continue on the rest of the inventory: England’s white-ball tour this autumn (eight ODIs and T20s), and the one-off 150th-anniversary Test in Melbourne next March. Taking the Top End Tests puts DAZN in the room for those conversations without committing to a multi-year CA slate yet.
Context explains why a modest series matters. DAZN’s only prior UK cricket was a joint 2023 Indian Premier League package with Sky Sports. Last year it bought Foxtel, the Australian pay-TV company that already holds Cricket Australia’s domestic rights through 2031. The UK Bangladesh feed is expected to lean on host broadcaster Fox Sports coverage — a tidy way to put cricket on the global app without building a full production from scratch.
UK cricket viewing has been fragmenting for years. Sky pulled back from England’s winter tours while keeping the Big Bash. TNT Sports (and BT Sport before it) carried the last three men’s Ashes Down Under. Cricket Australia has struggled to find competitive bids for non-Ashes UK windows. Into that gap walks a streamer that already owns Australian domestic cricket pipes and wants to know whether red-ball mornings from Darwin can sit beside Serie A nights and UFC cards for British subscribers.
On the field, Australia start a heavy stretch with Pat Cummins back as captain for the first time since the Adelaide Ashes Test last December — as many as 21 Tests in under a year if they reach next June’s World Test Championship final. Bangladesh return for their first Australian Test series since 2003. Fans in Britain who want those hours now need DAZN, not the familiar Sky or TNT tile.
The strategic read is narrower than a cricket takeover. DAZN is testing whether the sport belongs in its broader global platform — and whether a one-series foothold helps it win England’s autumn tour, Melbourne’s anniversary Test, or eventually the 2029–30 Ashes UK rights. The Bangladesh series alone will not settle that. It does put cricket on the DAZN grid for the first time as a solo show.