Cricket: Channel 9 roasted over Ashes fail

Channel 9 has been roasted over this image. Photo / Twitter

Channel 9 has been roasted for failing to make any changes to its commentary panel for the summer of cricket.

The network's Ashes commentary team was unveiled at North Sydney Oval on Friday, where not one new face was revealed in the famed commentary line-up.

The network has particularly been criticised for failing to include any women's commentators in the squad which will call the 2017-18 Series, beginning with the First Test at the Gabba on November 23.

A photo taken from Nine's Ashes launch of commentators Shane Warne, Michael Slater, Ian Chappell, Bill Lawry, Mark Nicholas, Ian Healey, Mark Taylor and Michael Clarke has been labelled "male, pale and stale" by some Aussie cricket commentators.

Nine's cricket commentary panel is the most iconic sporting broadcast crew in Australian sport, but Nine's failure to put change into effect, despite their coverage of the women's Ashes series this summer has been too much for some to handle.

Nine's broadcasts of the women's Ashes series was so popular the network promoted the series to its main channel during the early ODI's.

However, the four-day Test at North Sydney Oval was shunned because of an earlier broadcast agreement, leaving the match to be relegated to Cricket Australia's online arm, which broadcast the match through a live stream.

The match featured the talents of female commentators, including Aussie cricket greats Lisa Sthalaker and Mel Jones. Former English cricketer's turned popular commentators Isa Guha (who will feature on Triple M's coverage of the Ashes) and Charlotte Edwards have also been overlooked by Nine.

Nine has again turned to English duo Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen to provide the English colour this summer.

It is the same formula that has divided Aussie cricket fans in recent years.

Worst boy band Ever... https://t.co/llYOC0kBQz

— Francis Leach (@SaintFrankly) November 17, 2017

I'd just like to congratulate @Channel9 on the #diversity of this years commentary team 👏👏👏 https://t.co/LIAFJngtDL

— Simon Mitchell (@_SimonMitchell) November 17, 2017

Not good enough @9NewsAUS @wwos. It is 2017 and you need to do better than this. There are a multitude of talented, capable female presenters, commentators, cricketers and experts that could have joined this panel.

— Ryan Hamilton (@HamiltonRyan) November 17, 2017

NEWSFLASH: it’s 2017 not the 1950s fellas!
Such a blatant lack of #diversity of every kind is unacceptable & quite frankly just bad business https://t.co/uGqcEwe8mr

— Meggie Palmer (@MeggiePalmer) November 17, 2017

Even Aussie Test legend Shane Warne copped heat from a handful of fans on his Instagram account.

View this post on Instagram

Here is the @wwos commentary team for the #summerofcricket on @channel9 Who’s winning this series ?Ps Don’t forget @michaelvaughan & @kp24 (for the first 3 tests) will be on 9 too #Ashes

A post shared by Shane Warne (@shanewarne23) on Nov 16, 2017 at 5:49pm PST

Nine earlier this week announced that Lawry would be returning to the team for the Boxing Day Test at the MCG and the New Year's Day Test in Sydney in his 40th year of commentating for Wide World of Sports.

Nine will also be broadcasting Australia's ODI series against England in January and Australia's Trans-Tasman series against New Zealand at the end of the summer.