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The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has announced a ground breaking deal with digital sports specialists Perform for highlight clips of England’s npower Ashes Test Series, NatWest Series one-day internationals and NatWest International Twenty20 matches to appear online across major UK publisher websites.

The deal means that for the first time the ECB content is available free to the UK’s online audience in such a way. Fans of cricket in the UK and Ireland can stay in touch with all the action from the much anticipated npower Ashes series, with 3minutes (1 minute of each session) of highlights being distributed at the end of each day’s play, from the official ECBtv channel of the market leading e-Player sports video network.

The 26 channel e-Player, a free-to-view web TV player, currently syndicates premium sports highlights, including Virgin Media’s Barclays Premier League and Coca-Cola Football League clips to over 130 websites including major UK publisher groups News International, Trinity Mirror Group, Daily Mail Media Group, Telegraph Media Group and Guardian News and Media Ltd.

Perform Sales, the advertising and sponsorship sales division of Perform, recently secured Five - which as an ECB Broadcast Partner has the rights to show television highlights of the npower Ashes Series and NatWest ODI Series this summer - as the official sponsor for the ECBtv channel on the e-Player for July and August, while IDS are responsible for selling pre-roll video advertising across the e-Player network.

Will Collinson, Head of Marketing at the ECB, said: “With The Great Exhibition of cricket in full swing, we have now arrived at the main event. We want to make it simple for everyone whether at home or at work to follow the npower Ashes Series.Participation in cricket is increasing year on year, tickets for the matches are sold out and interest in the game is at fever pitch. Perform’s e-Player sports video network means as many cricket fans as possible in the UK will be able to follow highlights of England’s progress this summer.”

Oliver Slipper, joint-CEO, Perform said: “The ECB has taken a really exciting step by making their highlights available online for free in this way. Cricket fans can get a daily highlights package online, which also offers up an extremely exciting opportunity for brands to advertise around this content. There is the potential to reach upwards of 6 million unique viewers per month. We’re very much looking forward to the summer - let’s hope England can emulate 2005’s success!”