Wow, what a title, but here it is a single post which can show you how to enjoy a proper cricket commentary from the wonderful Test Match Special team irrespective of where you are. The BBC have amazingly got broadcasting rights for the vast majority of the games on the radio. However frustratingly, especially in the holiday season, those outside the UK will not be able to access them.

Listen to the BBC Cricket Coverage anywhere

The Problem – Your IP Address is not in the UK

Which is why when you visit the BBC website you’ll encounter a different set up than if you accessed from the UK. You may be sitting on a Spanish beach with a knotted hanky on your head and a pint of Carlsberg in your hand, but the BBC will not consider you British. So if you use any device there (or anywhere outside the UK) you will be treated as a non-domestic visitor and routed through to the International version of the BBC website.  It doesn’t matter where, you’ll get the same result from Papua New Guinea as you will from trying to watch the BBC iPlayer from Dublin !

The international version contains no links or access to the multimedia pages – so no Live TV, no BBC iPlayer just a standard news site.  Even if you try and sneak into the main site by inputting the URL directly you’ll simply be blocked on all the TV station and video links.  Same goes for the majority of the radio links too, although some maybe accessible most sporting events won’t work including the Cricket World Cup coverage.

So there’s probably some coverage where you are currently, but of course that’s not always guaranteed.  Try finding some decent cricket commentary in German, Spain or the USA and it can be difficult.  Lots of countries simply have no interest whatsoever in the game of Cricket so you could be out of luck. Which is why it’s fortunate that there is a simple method to bypass all these silly blocks and filters.

What’s more there’s even a solution that you can use for free for a few days up until the end of the tournament.

Here’s the steps to follow

– first click on this banner and go and grab yourself a free 14 day trial in exchange for your email address.

You can then create your account and find instructions on how to enable your device for bypassing these blocks.  Don’t worry it’s pretty easy and takes only a couple of minutes and simply involves changing your DNS servers.

Yes I know DNS, sounds bad but it’s actually not really technical at all – here’s how it’s done on your PC, there’s an actual demonstration about 45 seconds in.

That’s really all there is to it – change your DNS servers to the Smart proxy ones.  Make sure you take a note of your current DNS servers in case you want to change them back.  As long as you have an active subscription then it all should work properly.  Just restart your browser go to the BBC Cricket site or the BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra link – https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket and everything will work just like you’re in the United Kingdom.   I found it very hard to find cricket coverage on a recent trip to Lyon, but used this method to access BBC from France when I was there too.

You can change the settings on virtually any device to achieve the same – your smartphone, tablet, laptop even most games consoles will work just by changing those two server names.  There’s loads of guides in the members area available when you join.

Yet there’s more ! Yes, much, much more!

Not only will the cricket stream perfectly to your device now, irrespective of where you happen to be in the world.  All the BBC will work perfectly too, you can stream live TV or access  the BBC iPlayer with thousands of archived shows and box sets.  Every other United Kingdom TV channel will work also – so you can watch ITV, Channels 4 and 5 too.    Channel 4 actually has highlights of every match in the evening too.

Even UK only subscription channels like Sky will work although you will need an active subscription for them.  If you have an active Sky account remember you can enjoy the ICC World Cup live streaming from them too.

What’s more channels in other countries which are normally blocked will work seamlessly as well.  For cricket lovers it might be worth checking out ABC in Australia or Hotstar in India – the sites will all work via the awesome power of the Smart DNS proxies!

Also if you’re Netflix fan you can enable Smart DNS to sneakily route you through to the US version which is way better than any other locale.  The American Netflix has thousands more films and shows than every other region has.

All this is done automatically, you won’t have to do anything.  The only time you need to change anything is when your IP address changes and you have to reauthorize your new connection in the members area.   This would happen most on mobile devices when you change your Wireless connection for example.

So What’s the Catch ?

Normally when I see these feel trials, I suspect foul play! Usually something like an expensive recurring subscription which is automatically enabled!  Which you can only cancel by ringing a telephone number in the Seychelles manned by a Portuguese speaking sales agent two hours a day.

Yet this isn’t the case here I can promise you.  The subscription will simply expire if you don’t re-subscribe.  Yes you’ll get a few emails about them missing you and asking you to subscribe, but it’s refreshingly easy to ignore them.   In reality many people find it so good they do subscribe as it’s very inexpensive – the long packages literally cost a couple of Euros/Dollars a month.

So at the end of the 14 days, the Smart DNS servers will stop working if you don’t subscribe and you’ll need to change them back to your original settings given to you by your ISP.  If you made a note, then just change them and you’re done.  Otherwise you’ll find them in your ISP welcome email or just search online. Lots of free ones available online anyway – many people use the Google ones by choice – 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

So Unlimited UK TV, Free Access to the World’s Online TV channels and best of all you can listen to the Test Match Special team commentating on the Cricket World Cup in 2024 .  The only thing missing for me will be hopefully listening to England crowned Cricket World Cup Winners!

Click to Try the Free Trial Here

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