UPDATE – Watching the Cricket World Cup 2011 Final in Philly

Watching the World Cup Cricket in PhiladelphiaUPDATE: The final is being played this Saturday between Sri Lanka and India can be seen at Philadelphia’s Tir Na Nog with the game starting at 5am. Follow details on this Yelp thread.

After a pretty successful limited over series against England, the Aussies are primed for the World Cup and in fairly decent touch so should be fairly competitive. Even though Philadelphia is home to cricket in the US, there are pretty limited opportunities to follow the tournament via traditional channels. It doesn’t appear viable on comcast even though they have a cricket channel. The official US cricket channel is Willow TV and they’re offering up quite a few new media options for viewing and is by far the most comprehensive.

Willow is providing a very flexible opportunity that incorporates Roku, Google TV, PS3, DishworldIPTV, Boxee, Xbox, Wii and others via a live feed as well as several mobile platforms and may be well worth the $129 subscription. They also teamed up with Dish Network and DirecTV for viewing opportunities around the clock, Dish is also $129 while DirecTV is $149.

If you need an Internet-only option, the more affordable TVNsports.com has come a fair way since their dodgy beginnings and a $39.95 fee will get you the full compliment of World Cup matches or $149.99 will get you a full year. Hopefully their system will hold up and they’ll continue to be around but there are no guarantees.

The time difference between Philly and India is generally +10.5 hours (though there will be a few games in Bangledesh which is an additional +0.5) which should work out OK for the night games as we’ll be able to perch the computer up with the game while we work, otherwise you’re going to have to rely on Highlights and Replays.

If you know of any other World Cup Cricket viewing options in Philadelphia, please let us know.

!!UPDATE!! – we just received word from Willow TV that any other service that allows viewers in the US access to the World Cup are “infringers of the global copyrights” and have filed subpoena to “the payment processors for these websites”. One of those websites is listed here as TVNSports.com but others including desiblast.tv, criczone.net, cricketworldcup.tv and cricfree.net. As a result it is probably in your best interests to go with one of the Willow TV options to ensure that you will be able to actually get access to the games.

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