The hyperbole was awful, but my 5 year old knows who all the teams were and who the key players were – men and women – for all the teams. It was on BBC TV. Surely its all good?
Was it the worst thing of all time, the death knell of English cricket? Or was it the best quality of cricket since Kerry Packer? Was it even cricket? Were the counties treated with contempt? Before the tournament it seemed that people were deciding which camp to sit in and were refusing to accept any other possible point of view. It seemed to me that those against the tournament had the louder voice, but then one of the franchises talked of proving the ‘haters’ wrong. The PR was a mess. The sponsor was not ideal.
Once the tournament started this polarisation reduced, but those emotions never went away and some people did indeed refuse to watch the tournament. The cricket media certainly did not help. We had commentators and pundits endlessly proclaiming the brilliance of the tournament (Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen spring to mind). Then we had awful articles that were obsessed with the sponsors more than the cricket. Matthew Engel in The Guardian clearly does not approve of the sponsor – so it seems strange that he mentioned the sponsors more than the actual team names!. Was Mike Atherton the only pundit who sat in the middle ground (though I did not hear him commentate on a game)?
So lets firstly consider the perspective of the aforementioned 5 year old – Henry. Covid has meant that Henry did not get to many T20 games this year, but he has been to a few Lancashire games before Covid. However, the concept of County Cricket is not something he really understands, and so neither does he grasp the impact of The Hundred on the counties. Of course, we live in Cheshire, not Lancashire, but the issue is keeping up with all the different formats and the varying key players. Bringing in an extra format seems counter intuitive to this last point. But the ‘short and sharp’ format with (relatively) consistent players makes it much easier for him to follow the tournament. He is now a Manchester Originals fan without a doubt – despite the fact that the Originals had a poor tournament and Old Trafford put out some dull pitches. As for the intricacies of the format…100 balls rather than 120, timouts, new batter always on strike….Henry could not care less. The runs and balls graphics and countdowns are good though – Henry gets that.
Now for my perspective – and I am a lifelong Lancs fan. I remember all those B&H and NatWest finals from the 90s. The 1996 Roses Semi Final was one of the mot exciting games I have ever seen. Richie Benaud described the last ball, saying ‘and now we have a little finish’. Those days seem to have gone sadly, and the one day final has been a secondary event for years. The Hundred fixtures were watched by big crowds. That is just a fact.
I am one of the lucky people who has been able to afford Sky for many years, so the loss of terrestrial coverage was not noticeable. However, those finals in the 90s were always on the BBC (and the semis and quarters – often switching between multiple games on the same day). So I am delighted to see the BBC giving such enthusiasm to covering The Hundred, even if Vaughan and Phil Tufnell rather struggled to avoid the jargon (it seemed almost like they were trying so hard to avoid jargon they ended up using more!). Of course, some would proffer the argument that the BBC thought they were signing up to a T20 tournament. But again, the simple fact is that county cricket has not been on the BBC and The Hundred has.
What about the format? In honesty it does seem unnecessary. It is so subtly different to T20 that it makes it hard for existing fans. I do think some of the graphics will be easier for new cricket viewers, but I am not sure you needed a new format to fix that.
The franchises? I think it is easier if the franchises are city and town based, but I do not think that means that you need to have a small number of teams. A well defined structure of leagues with promotion and relegation would seem to be possible (akin to football). But why not use the city names? I am not sure Henry would have grasped ‘Southern Brave’ or ‘Northern Superchargers’. ‘Manchester’ was clear to him. So why not Cardiff, Leeds, Nottingham? Why not 2 London teams? Why not Leicester, Northampton, Taunton? I do not see this as a malicious attempt to damage the counties (some disagree) but rather I see an obsession with franchises. The Hundred is surely lost on places like Bristol, Taunton and Durham.
As for damaging English cricket? Well, the fixture list has been a pile of poo for years. Confusing. Hard to keep up with. But read the accounts of Simon Hughes and Derek Pringle of county cricket in the 80s and you will see that fixture planning has been a problem for many decades (consider the 4 day game between Notts and Midlesex at Trent Bridge which sandwiched a Sunday league game between the same teams at Lords – thats a whole load of miles on the M1 but doubled!) But it does seem odd that in 2021 I cannot see any games at Old Trafford in the last 3 weeks of August.
The lack of investment in long form cricket? That has been a problem since 2015. The Hundred just worsens an existing probem. Stamping all over the counties? Undoubtedly, but if the county product was that good then The Hundred would never have been spawned. If this forces the counties to sort themselves out with more national consensus…well that would be no bad thnig.
So where does that leave me? Well, I thought the tournament was great. I think something new and different was needed, but I think a city based T20 series of leagues would work. The Hundred does nothing for England Cricket – but that’s nothing new.
I suspect the real test of The Hundred will be next year.
Cricketed 