It’s finals day as another edition draws to a close.
Personally I’m not a fan – there have been big crowds to be fair and some exciting close finishes but it just doesn’t grab my attention.
Perhaps it’s that the teams aren’t that local so it’s harder to identify with them, or maybe the lack of the big name overseas players that was widely touted when the tournament was first launched, or maybe it’s just one limited over competetion too many in an already crowded sports market.
There’s been speculation that when the current contract ends it will be mothballed as it’s not generated as much revenue as was hoped and also the format – basically a hybrid T20 game – hasn’t been adopted by any other countries who seem happy with their own existing T20 competitions.
Thoughts?
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To me it’s a bit like LIV golf. I can watch it for a while, but it seems more like a contrived exhibition than a real competition, does anyone really care who wins? Have read that it has been good for women’s cricket, but they could also get heightened exposure with a T20 competition
The fact it has pushed test cricket and most other cricket into compacted time periods either side of the competition is the worse thing about it.
I hate it. Tom Harrison (then ECB chief executive) more or less gave away in an interview with Michael Atherton on Sky Sports that one of the key reasons for the new teams (as opposed to having counties competing) was to grab power from the counties – which is a terrible reason. Cricket in this country is in desperate need of reform and some of the counties seem determined to thwart progress but the ECB was never going to improve things by declaring war on one of its biggest constituencies.
The reasons originally given for the format were stupid or a lie. It was said that cricket is too complicated for non-fans to understand and something simpler was needed to attract more people to the game. But what they came up with is even more confusing even for people who know the game. And the on-screen information on the tv coverage is harder to interpret than that for conventional games. It was said that the BBC had insisted on a shorter format than T20 but the BBC originally signed up to cover a T20 tournament and was always happy to do so.
It looks like the ECB wanted to create a new format that it owned and could franchise around the world to bring in some money and make up for its failure to spot the commercial potential of T20 when it had the chance. But that was never going to work. The Hundred is too similar to T20 and T20 has taken firm hold. Also, it’s a reality of cricket politics that India’s cricket board (the BCCI) is powerful enough to prevent any format of which it doesn’t approve from succeeding. Virat Kohli (Indian captain and presumed mouthpiece of the BCCI here) explained that he wouldn’t play in the Hundred because the world doesn’t need another format. Also, it seems pretty clear that top players don’t like the format and don’t want to play in it. Even though the ECB has poured untold amounts of money into the Hundred (while not promoting other competitions) and given it the prime slot in the summer, it doesn’t seem to be a commercial success, certainly no more succesful than the Blast would be if it were given such a big marketing push.
The only good thing about the Hundred is that it has given women’s cricket a big profile boost. That’s important but it hasn’t happened because of the format, only because women’s games have been scheduled in a way that gives them much greater profile and because they are on tv. So it ought to be possible to preserve and build on the progress with a T20 competition if the ECB has the will.
So the Hundred deserves to fail and it’s going to fail. The only question is how long it will take for the ECB to own up to it. Now that the people who created it have largely moved on, they seem to have started to do so.
The whole thing is so contrived. It is odd, but the 20 balls fewer per innings seems to me to make a huge difference to the batters’ mindset, and this thing with ‘sets’ of 5 balls is stupidly confusing. T20 games still have some ebb and flow, but so many of the games I have watched in the hundred seem to be over half way though the run chase as wickets tumble. The on screen graphics are bloody annoying too.
Most unforgivable is the way this has squeezed the long form of the game into the early and late summer – what a shame we aren’t watching the last Ashes Test at the Oval this weekend like we used to.
Obviously County Championship cricket never made any money. In the 60s to 80s (or later?) period there were 3 limited over competitions. 40 over Sunday League plus 55 over and 60 over cups. You could probably make the case that there wasn’t a need for all of those and there really isn’t much difference between 55 and 60 over games.
The good thing in those days were decent scheduling of these games. 3 day County Championship would be Sat, Mon, Tues (Fri, Sat, Mon?) with a Sunday League game in the middle, then other limited over games on Wednesdays.
All test matches started on Thursdays and ended on Tuesday (Sunday being a rest day). Very easy to know what might be going on on any particular day of the week
I was surprised to see there’s a 50 over county competition on at the same time. So they’ve creamed off the best players to play a format nobody cares about, leaving half strength teams to play a competition nobody knows about. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
No thats good because Glamorgan won it last year. So it’s a very important competition 🙂
Ha! 😉
even better this year when Gloucestershire stand a decent chance of getting to the final
Let me offer a perspective as someone who, until 2 years ago, had never been to a professional game, and found it one of the few sports that I really couldn’t get interested in.
I moved to a small town about 20 minutes outside Taunton, and cricket is the only professional sport in the area, and much easier to get to than rugby / footy in Bristol or Exeter. So out of curiosity I went to a one day game and then started watching the T20 on Sky.
The T20 got me hooked. I could get to a game after work, or watch on TV in the evening, and there was plenty of action. I still don’t really know the difference between a googly and a grubber, couldn’t name a single fielding position, but it turns out it doesn’t matter. Once you’ve grasped what a 4 or a 6 is, you’re away. It was entertaining. I invested in a white ball season ticket, and for once found myself watching a winning team. The T20 generates some real excitement and I’ll be back next year.
I’ve watched the Hundred too, and it’s been excellent for the most part. It’s bringing in kids and women in a way that the rest of cricket – including the T20 – has totally failed to. I’m not following the comments about it being difficult to understand – it really isn’t. The main downside is the franchise format and the fact that none of the games are played in Taunton. I’ll watch the finals play out and then for me the season is over.
My white ball ticket includes one day games but there’s almost no overlap between the T20 and the longer format squads, so it’s slower, lower quality, unfamiliar faces and nowhere near as well attended. As for the county game, there’s no way I can take 4 days out to watch something; just going for one day seems pointless.
There’s too much cricket overall. The most obvious overlap is the T20 and the Hundred but neither are going away any time soon as they are by far the most financially viable and most popular. Talking to a few regulars and some of the staff at the ground, it’s evident that white ball games are the only reason cricket there is still financially viable, and whilst crowds might improve if county games were played in July / August, it will still struggle to get the crowds and the TV coverage that would be needed to stand on its own two feet.
Financial viability is a complicated subject. 3 or 4 day cricket ceased being financially viable soon after World War Two but it still continues to this day with 18 counties in two divisions losing money every single day they play.
The various short forms of the game are all attempts to bring revenue into the game but there is a lack of transparency about the figures that makes it hard to assess which competitions, if any, actually make a decent return on the money invested in them. The public figures about the Hundred are especially questionable because of the desire on the part of the ECB not to admit that its grand plan was misguided. At least it now seems to be broadly accepted that there is more very short form cricket (T20 and the Hundred) being played than there is spectator demand to watch.
At present, the only commercial cricket venture in the company that clearly makes serious money is the England men’s team. Maybe I should refer to ventures and teams as the red ball and white ball teams are gradually diverging but anyway the Test team continues to sell out home matches at very high ticket prices as do the white ball teams. These revenues enormously subsidise the domestic game.
Each of those England teams requires a domestic competition to feed it with players. It’s a contentious point but I would argue that this should be the primary purpose of the top tier of domestic cricket. If you accept that then it’s a short step to the conclusion that there are far too many professional cricket teams in the country. 8 might be a better number. If there were 8 clubs or franchises, call them what you will but they won’t be counties, competing in a 4-day competition, a 50-over competition and a T20 competition then you’d be better serving the England teams and you’d also be far more likely to have 2 white ball competitions that would be financially viable in their own right.
Oh, and by the way, you might even make enough money from those competitions to be able to afford to get at least some international cricket back on free-to-air tv which could really improve levels of participation in the game.
But this sort of argument has been around since the 1960s in various guises. And the counties have killed any attempt at rationalising the game. I wish I could believe that this will change.
“there are far too many professional cricket teams in the country. 8 might be a better number”
It’s a good point. The same number as the hundred. I can see cricket going that way, but what that means for the counties (in particular Northants, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Worcestershire) is anybody’s guess.
In terms of bringing more youngsters, women, families etc into the game then I would say do whatever works.
See above. Limited over cricket has been around for decades and it has been the only way to fill county grounds (apart from test matches) forever. What is pointless and self defeating is to have 2 very similar competitions. When The Hundred started I presumed it would replace T20 at a club/county level in England. This hasn’t happened and the rest of cricket is subsequently suffering or soon will be
I loathe the thing. Contrived competition thrown together for the very reasons that Steve W elaborates on. Hasn’t been picked up by any other countries and is highly unlikely to. Why would they when they have 20 over cricket. It is the typical brainchild of people who only saw £ signs and marketing feedback that supposedly told them that non-supporters found the language of overs and counting to 6 was too confusing.
Hopefully, someone at the ECB will have the gonads to take the thing out the back and wring it’s neck.
It might take off elsewhere, but the current owners of it seem to want to offload it and make money asap, when the history of the IPL and others suggests that you have to stay with it for the long term. With the worldwide competition from T20, I personally can’t see the Hundred has legs. But I’m a Somerset supporter, delighted my team has won The Blast, but with no ‘dog in the fight’ of this 100 thing. Shame the 50-over County series has been stripped of venues and players by the 100. Still, a few 4-day matches to come…
The conundrum for the authorities is that there are too many counties to have a high quality T20 league. The IPl only has 10 teams in a country of 1.2 billion people. So one can see the attraction of having a more limited number of franchises. Trouble then that many people in the UK then feel little or no affinity any of the franchises. As an English Gloucestershire supporter, It’s difficult to summon up any enthusiasm for a Cardiff based team called Welsh Fire. The expectation appears to be that people will support whoever their favourite player turns out for, which is common in India and increasingly the case with young football fans.
All that aside, the main problem for me with the hundred and T20 is that they are both substandard competitions. If I lived close to a ground I might go, but I won’t bother travelling. As an aside, I had planned earlier in the year to take an Indian friend to either Lords or the Oval, London being half way between where we live. Attempting to find the fixtures was far from simple. I then found that neither Surrey nor Middlesex appeared to be playing for nearly six weeks. There were test matches, but we couldn’t justify shelling out £300 (plus travel)
Jonny Bairstow plays for Welsh fire! What? He was at Headingley the other day playing for the away team. That nust be interesting for him and all the others who have been bought by franchises rather than having any affinity with location or team mates. Of course the Indian Premier League is the same and it seems that is the way sport is going in general worldwide.
Do the Saudi Arabians like cricket?
T20 I get and I have enjoyed a couple of games watching Lancashire. A very social occasion. It seems the Hundred is an even shorter version of this full of more razzmatazz and trying to connect to a different, younger audience. I guess that should be applauded but for me it’s too similar.
Give me the long form game and some close 50 overs matches any day.
I’ve said before that buying a ticket for a test match or T20 is a fuckwit lottery. End up near a gang out to drink the place dry can make for a very long day or evening. I even found myself agreeing with Kevin Pietersen the other night when he said the atmosphere is just different at The Hundred. Add that to the obvious benefit to the women’s game and The Hundred has had some provided some lessons.
What happens next? I think a franchise T20 tournament is where we’ll end up. I think a better selection of zones may help so you can hang your bucket hat on a local team. Would the ECB and advertisers and TV buy in to an 18 team county T20? I don’t see why not but what do I know? Whatever happens keepthe women’s game involved and keep it family and moderate the booze.
If you can watch Harry Brook bat or Sam Curran bowl and not see the benefit of kids growing up playing short form and developing these extraordinary new skills which absolutely transfer to test cricket then there’s nothing I can say.
I’m not a huge fan. I’ve been to one game at Trent Bridge this year and only because a mate had a spare ticket. But it’s clearly selling well as TB has been pretty full for all four games whereas the T20 games there this year had noticeably fewer supporters than previous years. I suppose a lot of people can’t afford both but more have clearly chosen the Hundred.
The negatives for me, aside from the over the top razzmatazz and all that jazz and the unnecessary over-complicating of the format, is the impact on the 50 over game. Yes, some second team players at Notts (Montgomery and Harrison) have used it as a platform to become established first team players, an opportunity that otherwise might not have presented itself. But it’ll be interesting to see how England get on at the World Cup given that none of the squad play 50 over cricket except at international level. As others have said, the impact on the international schedule, and the county championship schedule for that matter, is another negative.
The boost it’s given the women’s game is surely its biggest plus, as highlighted by the crowds during the Ashes. Notts had one double header with the Loughborough based women’s team during the T20 but that was it. Not sure if it happens elsewhere and there’s clearly room for improvement. The Hundred obviously appeals to the kids too which can only be positive in growing the game.
If the Hundred does come to an end, could a county T20 format continue to build the women’s game. Would a franchise T20 work, albeit with a few more teams than the Hundred has. Perhaps add teams at Bristol, Canterbury, Chester le Street, Taunton (i.e. those grounds with decent capacities) which would allow more county cricketers to be involved and would also grow the women’s game even more.
Interesting article from the BBC.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/66635447
It’s the only cricket the BBC now show live so they are invested in it. I keep reading how good it is for the women’s game and that is indeed a plus, but seems to me the grounds are half empty (at best) for the women, before filling up when the men come on.
The women still get to play second banana and lose out if there are weather delays but at least they are getting to play at major ground, with TV coverage. It will be 2026 before Lords deems to host a women’s test match, although it’s been hosting boys public schools matches for years.
I thought the Women’s Ashes Test at Trent Bridge this year was really good.
Who won it? Anybody care?
The KP peanuts beat the McCoys crisps in the men’s final. Wasn’t a bad game all told.