Zimbabwe suffers cricket blackout as first Test gets under way

Zimbabweans were left dismayed as the morning of the first Test match against New Zealand at Bulawayo’s Queens Sports Club was kept off screens on the local terrestrial broadcaster, ZTV or on satellite provider DStv.

SuperSport via the DStv care twitter account simply said it had not acquired rights to the test:

@joeblackzw Unfortunately, Supersport didn't acquire rights to broadcast the Test Match. ~KDP
— DStv Care (@DStvCare) July 28, 2016

It is not clear why ZTV which of late has shown matches involving full test sides has been unable to show the match.

There is definitely a feed because New Zealanders are able to watch it. So essentially New Zealanders could watch the match while the host’s fans were unable to. However, a streaming link is not hard to find odd the Internet.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe were 49-4 at lunch after 26 overs at the time of this post. The hosts won the toss and elected to bat.

UPDATE ON LACK OF ZTV FEED: We sincerely apologise. Engineers are working flat out to get the signal. We are experencing technical problems. We are hoping the guys will hve sorted it out after lunch.