England v Australia: may disappear from terrestrial TV

Major Breaks Silence on Sports Academy

Mr Major, in his first major interview since Labour came to power, told BBC Radio's Today programme that ministers were guilty of "one of the fastest U-turns" on the issue - following hints from the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary that cricket might get its own academy.

Mr Major is a fervent cricket fan but was equally scathing about the decision to exclude rugby and football from the proposed academy.

"That seems to me to be an extraordinary decision," he said. "There you have, in a national academy, the three great national sports that people in this country most watch, most play, most love - and they are to be excluded from the national academy.

John Major: "They should talk to some of the poorer teams" Dur: 5'13"

"What alarmed me so much by what the Government announced the other day was the rather pre-emptory and abrupt dismissal of these three major sports from the central academy," he said.

"They've already begun to take money away from the Lottery and one begins to fear that they would firstly exclude these sports from the academy and then, gradually, on the grounds that they were rich or for whatever grounds they could produce, eliminate other funding that they might get from the Lottery."

Chris Smith: balancing act

"A national sports academy can't do everything" Dur: 1'23"

Mr Major was asked why had he used the word "spite" to describe the Government's proposal.

"I think you need to look at Labour's long-term hang ups," he said. "They have been opposed to competitive team sports for a very long time."

Mr Major's love of cricket was reflected on the day he left Downing Street following the Tories' General Election defeat, when he took solace by watching a game at the Oval.

The exclusion of cricket, soccer and rugby from the £100m project was one of the topics on the agenda when Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the England Cricket Board, met the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, Chris Smith, on Monday.

Both sides emerged describing the meeting as helpful, with cricket chiefs winning an assurance that they would have access to the Academy's sports science and medicine expertise.

They signalled their intention to press ahead with plans for a separate cricket academy and a determination to press the Government hard for greater freedom in selling potentially lucrative broadcast rights to Test matches to satellite and cable broadcasters.

The home Test matches are one of the listed events, along with other sporting highlights such as the FA Cup and the Grand National, which are reserved for terrestrial television.

The cricket board had said that, to bring in new money, it wanted to be able to strike deals with satellite and cable broadcasters once the current package with the BBC and Sky draws to a close at the end of next summer. A sale of rights could raise up to £150m for a four-year contract. But it would anger British cricket-lovers, who have always enjoyed free access to televised test matches.

After the talks, Mr Smith said he would be studying the board's proposals for a national cricket academy and promised to meet them again "to discuss how best to take these plans forward".

Earlier, he had suggested that a cricket academy might benefit from National Lottery funding.

"We do not want to write cricket out of the script. It may well be that an application to the National Lottery might be a good idea," he said.