Cricket Pundits Nicholas and Boycott Move to Five

Mark Nicholas and Geoff Boycott are set to be reunited with the independent producer of Channel 4’s award-winning Test match coverage when cricket highlights move to Channel Five in the summer.

Sunset+Vine, which won more than 20 awards for its Channel 4 coverage, will produce a 45-minute highlights program for Five, beginning with England’s series against Sri Lanka.

Five has awarded the company a four-year contract to produce a prime time highlights package after each day’s play in England’s home Tests and one-day internationals.

Three Tests against Sri Lanka will be followed by a four-Test series against Pakistan later in the summer.

Nicholas and Boycott were key members of Channel 4’s presenting and commentary team and are expected to link up again on Five, along with a third commentator. However, Sunset+Vine has not yet confirmed its presenting line-up.

"Sunset+Vine has shown is is an outstanding producer of cricket," said the controller of sport at Five, Robert Charles.

"Its work over the past few years changed the face of TV coverage of the sport and introduced a number of innovations that have been adopted around the world."

Jeff Foulser, the chairman of Sunset+Vine, said the Five contract was a "massive vote of confidence in our team and we are really excited to be working with Five on the only terrestrial coverage of cricket in this country".

The loss of Channel 4 cricket last year was a significant blow for Sunset+Vine. It is part of the Tinopolis group, which bought Sunset+Vine’s parent company, TV Corp, for £36m last month.

Sunset+Vine makes more than 2,000 hours of television a year, including live football for Five, horse racing for the BBC and coverage of the Tour de France for ITV.

Channel 4 lost the live rights to England’s home Test cricket matches to Sky after the satellite broadcaster paid £220m for exclusive coverage.

England cricket bosses were accused of breaking a "gentleman’s agreement" to keep a substantial proportion of live domestic Test cricket on free-to-air television.