The official line on Gower and Hussain is that they're being 'rested' and it's probably not far from the truth. It's a heavy winter schedule and a busy year coming up with the New Zealand home series, Champions Trophy and back to back Ashes series.

The fact that Allott and Willis have been used in NZ, when they haven't been used on internationals for many years probably means that Sky are going to be resting/rotating people regularly over the next few months.

Sky 'A' team Presenting Gower, pundits, Botham, Atherton, Hussian, Lloyd, Holding, (with opposing team pundit)

Out of all of them who would you think would be the most vulnerable to go next?

Allott has done 4 ODI tours in a row now. Seems to be the 'new' Knight, now Knight seems to have been promoted to more Tests over the past couple of years.

I'll be interested to see if Allott gets any home ODI's this summer.

Holding probably replaced by Warne, but I really hate it when warne randomly goes to holiday in the middle of the tour.
would prefer if they replaced holding with a second touring commentator, but Holding is a fantastic commentator and would prefer him to stay, but he is the only commentator vulnerable at the moment.

They did the overseas test matches last winter

no they didn't
Allot did the odi and Willis was in the studio in london, could still remember the moment when he accused Ajmal for wearing long sleeves during the first day, it still being used in twitter and forum, mainly has a joke.

That shows how much of England's overseas ODI's I watched on tv instead of radio recently! This is Willis' first series for a while though isn't it?

It will be interesting to see, I could certainly see him doing a few ODI's against New Zealand or if they show any warm up games for the Champions Trophy (as he did before the World Twenty20 I think in '09)

can't see him during the warm up games as a commentator, maybe as a pundit, again very unlikely since it will be guaranteed india game will be filmed by the host broadcaster.
the pundit will either be an indian and the pundit from the other nation.

Not necessarily, in '09 before the World Twenty20, Sky did their own production of England's warm up games as ESPN Star were broadcasting the warm up games India were playing at the same time (I think at Lord's while England were at Trent Bridge)

it seem you haven't seen the fixtures list
england won't play any warm up games, tournament starts at the 7th June.
the england vs New zealand series will be treated as the warm up series, Possible Willis will commentate on that series, but it won't be treated as the champions trophy warm ups games.
http://www.ecb.co.uk/ecb/about-ecb/m...318099,EN.html
http://www.ecb.co.uk/ecb/about-ecb/m...319340,EN.html

the warm up games are usually used to guarantee one major game between india against Pakistan, Australia or england, with England not having any warm up games, pakistan being in the same group, it is likely India vs Australia will be the chosen warm up game for India.

was that the game with the red button coverage, didn't have sky sports for that tournament, watched the game in the internet, India were playing new zealand, I didn't even know sky showed the warm up game involving england, by any chance can you name the commentators used in that game please if you can, I am just Surprised Sky were allowed to produce coverage of a warm up game, when ESS hold the rights, it is possible that ESS chose to broadcast that match, with them just using the sky commentators, did they use sky graphic or the host feed graphics, remember the 2007 world cup warm up games had about 5 warm up games shown live, with one of them being the England vs australia game.

Doesn't mean they won't show any of the other warm up games that are going on though, in '09 they showed all the games at Trent Bridge including the ones that didn't involve England.

It's also possible that Allott or Willis may get a run out during the game England play against Essex as a warm up for the Ashes

don't worry I found a you tube video showing the game, with nick knight being seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX1uH7aGqGA
but it wasn't filmed or being broadcaster by ESPN Star Sports.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/wt202009...iew=commentary
The umpiring has not been crash-hot this evening, I'm afraid; that's the second decision Foster's not had, though there aren't any TV replays on offer for this warm-up.

I doubt Sky will waste any money producing games that does not cover england, they will only show the games ESPN Star Sport cover.
again I didn't have sky sport in 09, was it the sky comms during the warm up games not involving england, or the espn star sport coverage, I remember warm up game not involving india on the internet and ESS covered some games in that tournament and 2007 world cup.
looking at cricinfo all the lords games and trent bridge games were covered.

It was a Sky production with their commentators (I'm pretty sure Ward, Atherton, Allott and Knight were involved and a couple of others) and a composite of the ESPN Star graphics

Highly doubt Holding is vulnerable. The only way he'd be gone is if he wanted to. Non of the current lot are vulnerable, more likely to just add an extra commentator in each test than get rid of one.

I would like to see Ward actually present and commentate on some of the Home Tests or ODI's. (I remember he presented and commentated on one ODI in either 2012 or 2011 when Gower was unavailable for some reason.

Was it the winter before then ?

I am sure it wasnt years ago

I thought Ward, Stewart and in particular Collingwood did an excellent job of holding the fort during the first hour or so of the rain delay. Some good banter, and Collingwood is very personable (if not a little bland, which is understandable given how close he must be to the majority of the team). Stewart ribbing himself for his first class bowling record particularly made me laugh.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Alec Stewart does very, very well for himself working for so many media outlets.

Sky have him as a studio pundit very often for overseas tours, plus he is does lots of BBC Radio 5 live work, a column for the BBC website, and the 'fifth commentator' for Channel 5, standing in whenever any of the others are unavailable. Before this, he did some work for Channel 4 following his retirement.

It's rare for the same ex-pros to be big BBC and Sunset and Vine figures and big Sky figures, but Stewart manages it - and he's even fitted in some ITV/IPL work too!

They did, considering they had been on air an hour before the toss was scheduled to take place they went on for a lot longer than I thought they would before switching to highlights.

when england went to india, sky offered there comms
why cant they do this for all the tours..

because it was written in the contract that the ESPN Star Sport feed as to be available when using their feed.
anyway the comm team for Sky and Sky NZ are the same, they will just use different comm at different times, with Sky NZ having more new zealand commentators at a time, and vice versa.

yea and i get what your saying but some NZ comms are better than ours
and it would be great for the TWO ashes this year to get the aussie feed too

watching both comm team at the same time, the host broadcaster are using 3 comms at the same time, nick knight is commentating with simon doull alongside Craig Mcmillion.
EDIT
my mistake their using 2 commentators, it is just that 3 commentators were having a conversation about the toss.

Double EDIT I was correct the first time, their are using 3 comms, mcmillion has been quiet.

Have they moved solely to three commentators for the tests now in New Zealand then? For a couple of seasons they had three, but the third was like a 'Third Man' style analyst in the box