Cricket: Jowell and Murdoch Talked Cricket Before Deal

The pressure is growing on the government to release full details of a meeting between James Murdoch, Sky's chief executive, and Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, which took place three weeks before the satellite broadcaster won exclusive rights to cover Test cricket.

Extracts from the confidential minutes of the meeting were released to the Guardian under a Freedom of Information Act request, but details of the discussion about the broadcasting rights were withheld. The minutes of the meeting held on November 23 2004 marked "restricted" reveal that Murdoch "said he would like to discuss sports, the ECB [England and Wales Cricket Board] and the broadcast of Test cricket matches".

Sky's four-year £220m deal to screen all domestic Test matches and one-day internationals from the summer of 2006 was announced three weeks later. The Guardian is appealing against the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's decision not to disclose more details of the meeting. Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, wants the full minutes disclosed to the Commons culture, media and sport committee investigating the deal. "We want to know whether Sky were seeking assurances as to whether the government had any objections to the deal. Sky may have wanted to know if cricket would have been re-listed as a protected event."

Lord Smith of Finsbury, formerly Chris Smith, Jowell's predecessor as culture secretary, and Lord MacLaurin, former chairman of the ECB, had a "gentlemen's agreement" that a substantial proportion of cricket would remain free-to-air. At the same time the government agreed to move Test matches from the A-list of events guaranteed live free-to-air coverage to a B-list requiring only terrestrial highlights.

Adrian Sanders, the Liberal Democrat MP for Torbay, also called on Richard Caborn, the sports minister, to publish the minutes. Caborn said his department tried to be as open as possible and he would discuss the request with Jowell.

It also emerged yesterday that Jowell and James Purnell, the broadcasting minister, had a meeting with David Collier, chairman of the ECB, on September 5 this year. It is thought they discussed the public concern about cricket's disappearance from free-to-air TV.