The problem with English Cricket fans now is that they are divided by The Hundred. Hundred fans want to constantly ‘ram it down everyone else’s throats’ – every fixture last year was combined with endless ‘this is the most exciting cricket ever’ messages on social media, which ‘really wound up’ the ‘anti-hundred’. Now the message says ‘The Hundred could never be as good as the Blast’. Once again we have two hopeless extremes.
This year I have so far been to two T20 fixtures at Old Trafford, watched a couple on Sky and also looked at various Live Streams (why are Sky not showing more?). I have seen some exciting moments including a Roses tie at Old Trafford. But I have also seen some periods of dull cricket and some pretty poor presentation. That abysmal effort by Leicestershire against Derbyshire did little to defend the case of County Cricket against the apparently ‘Perfect Franchise’ – Leicester and Derby are sides that need to justify their existence more than ever.
Presentation
I am not ‘anti-hundred’. I did enjoy The Hundred fixtures I attended last year, and my (then 5-year old) son loved it. The Hundred did not get it all right, but it did show some of the potential in terms of presentation, most obviously in the graphics and stage management – yes, I did not like The Hundred graphics but the idea of consistency at ground and game is obvious.
That being said, I wish we had just added these values to the existing T20, rather than created a new type of game. However, I suspect The Hundred is here to stay. The best way to safeguard the future of County Cricket is to make the ‘product’ better than The Hundred, and it is the counties that will have to do this, not the ECB.
To that end, ‘the Blast’ lacks ‘pizzazz’. At Old Trafford, the music played between the overs is sometimes the same as it was 20 years ago. At Old Trafford, we could not hear the interviews and announcements where we were sat in the first game – the PA system was not up to it, but this was better in the second fixture. The ‘countdown’ and entry of the players and teams is a bit of a damp squib. Things are a bit slow-moving. So much of this could be easily fixed.
The idea of the bands performing within the arena during breaks is slightly galling to the traditional fan – I yearn for quietness between overs – but it is good for budding bands and provides some more for young children to be entertained by.
Can we take the best bits of both competitions and make 1 perfect tournament? That would take the ECB and Counties to work together. Now that’s a thought.
What about the Cricket itself?
It is hard as a fan. Your views on what is going on are impacted by your own team’s performance. And the fact is that whatever the format, whatever the game, you will have passages of ‘less interesting sport’. The two ‘Lancs’ games I have attended were of similar formats in that Lancashire batted first, set a target that could have been 5-10 runs higher and then looked like a beaten team until a late collapse. Yorkshire collapsed but scraped the tie, Worcestershire fell away to some good bowling by Richard Gleeson.
Both of these games featured a period around the tenth over where the chasing team appeared to be coasting to victory. It was a bit dull. I am not quite sure what the answer to this is, but perhaps we need a little more imagination around bowling quotas and field restrictions to avoid that feeling of a team ‘coasting’. That being said, Lancashire are quite good at strangling a team. As soon as the batting team needed runs slightly more quickly, a collapse came. However, I cannot escape a feeling that the cricket still could be better quality. It needs to be ‘live’ for longer.
What about Lancs
Lancashire seem to be getting going as the season goes on. With Phil Salt, Liam Livingstone and Tim David they have ‘serious’ batting power. Perhaps the concern is the backup to these guys – though Keaton Jennings is able to find ways to score quickly at the start, Steven Croft and Dane Vilas have struggled a bit to keep things moving. However, Lancashire have posted scores around 180, so I do not think we need to worry about the batting.
Lancashire at times look short of a bowler. Teams so far have slightly milked Matt Parkinson, avoiding too many risks. Richard Gleeson has looked good, as had Luke Wood at times. It remains to be seen if the loss of Saqib Mahmood hurts Lancashire in the later stages.
So far though, they are unbeaten and look capable of beating most sides.
Cricketed 