IT is good for the game of cricket that it is returning to the BBC after 21 years away.

Since live coverage of matches disappeared from a free-to-air broadcaster in 2005, junior participation has slowly reduced, despite many grassroots clubs locally really upping their game.

Cricket needs the mass exposure that the BBC can give across all of its platforms – TV, radio, website – and it is no coincidence that a player such as Sir Ian Botham is instantly recognisable to most non-cricket followers whereas Jimmy Anderson, England’s all-time highest international wicket-taker, could probably slip by unnoticed.

Botham, of course, was from an era when Test cricket occupied BBC2 for days on end when there were few other channels, whereas Anderson’s efforts have largely been covered by the satellite era.

Arguably even a sport as big as Premiership football needs the BBC – or at the very least, a free-to-air channel like ITV – to plug its product. Without Match of the Day, would football be as all-pervasive?

The new cricket deal from 2020 seems about right from the viewer’s point of view, as well. Highlights plus some short, live matches on the BBC, and if you want more in-depth coverage, you can pay for it on Sky – rather like the football.

But what does the deal say about our media landscape? We are supposed to live in a digital age with a multiplicity of channels offering us almost infinite choice. Yet the BBC, funded by licence fee payers and without any commercial imperative, has such a big reach – 97 per cent of the population make contact with it every week – it is able to muscle past other broadcasters to win the most attractive prizes.

It is believed that other broadcasters outbid the BBC, but it won the cricket contract because it can guarantee such a large audience, which is what cricket needs.

In the digital age of infinite choice, our news and sport is largely still filtered through a monolithic supplier.