The Asian Cricket Council will be broadcasting live audio commentary for all its tournaments from now until January 2008 via a website called hearcricket.com . The first tournament to be broadcast is the World Cup qualifier, the ACC U-19 Elite Cup from August 20-29 which features Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Malaysia, Nepal. Oman, Qatar, Singapore, Thailand and the UAE.

"There has been growing interest in our tournaments as hits on our website, fans' correspondence and global media coverage has shown," says ACC Chief Executive Syed Ashraful Huq. He added "Our Women's Tournament in July was a global phenomenon. Such is the level of interest that, in order to bring all those who follow the fortunes of their national cricketers in ACC tournaments closer to the game, we have decided to embark on this course of broadcasting live internet radio commentary."

Mr. Huq continued, "For the first time in the history of cricket broadcasting, Asian cricket is finally receiving the recognition it deserves. Our cricketers are dedicated, skilled and talented. They do the best they can and in many countries they are already national heroes. Their fortunes are followed by many of their countrymen. We believe that their cricket will further develop and initiatives such as hearcricket.com, truly reflect the growing interest in the game."

Hits to the ACC website www.asiancricket.org for the ACC Trophy numbered 74,000 over a two-week period last August. The users were logging on from all over the world, with matches featuring Afghanistan, Kuwait and Nepal being particularly popular.

Gopal Sreenevasan, founder of hearcricket.com is a Malaysian cricket enthusiast and says, "We know the ACC have high-quality cricket, we know there is a lot of interest in cricket, we believe that top-quality audio commentary through the internet via hearcricket.com is a superb way to reach fans of Asian cricket across the world. Now anyone, anywhere can follow their national teams in any of the forthcoming ACC tournaments. We're bringing cricket to cricket-lovers! One click on hearcricket.com and you're there."

Filed August 20 2007