The Hundred - Your Prediction

dumpling said:
A bit long winded but we could be World Champions in a format we are downgrading. Could be massive financial repercussions also for Durham.

ESPNcricinfo

Downgrading 50-over cricket is 'price to pay' for Hundred - ECB county

This is the summer that the ECB hopes will help "inspire a generation" of cricket fans, with England jostling to the front of the pack as favourites for a home World Cup. However, it could also be a last hurrah for one-day cricket in the UK, with the domestic 50-over cup set to become a "development competition" from 2020 onwards.

Gordon Hollins, the new managing director of county cricket, conceded that downgrading the 50-over tournament was "a price that has to be paid" in order to make room for The Hundred. Both competitions are set to run side by side, with the best England-qualified players involved in the new format, but Hollins said it was essential that the ECB came up with something to "make cricket cooler to more people".

Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, has previously claimed that The Hundred will not impact on the success of England's ODI team, and while Hollins suggested that 50-over batting skills could be honed in the shorter formats, he confirmed that the domestic cup would become a breeding ground for younger players.

The domestic List A competition is also likely to see the involvement in some form of the "national counties" - as the minor counties have been rebranded - in an attempt to further aid the spread of the game.

"I don't buy that [county cricket] is being devalued," Hollins said. "It might be different. Clearly the 50-over competition will become under this model a development competition. Nobody is going to deny that. But that's a price that has to be paid to fit the different formats in. There's a plus, too, in that you get the next round of players coming through.

"What we're also doing in that competition is going back to having warm-up matches against some of the national counties. A lot of the feedback I've heard over the last couple of years is, it was great when we had the NatWest Trophy/Gillette Cup, where you had Devon hosting Yorkshire in the first round and so on. We're introducing that in the County Partnership Agreement, where a first-class county will go to a national county. And I think that connects the first-class game with a broader audience, too."

Hollins said that while traditional county supporters were part of what he termed "the core" - devoted followers of the game - the goal of The Hundred was to further increase the base from which counties, and England, can recruit in the future.

"What I hear most often is there are not enough: people in club cricket saying, where's our next groundsman coming from, where's our next scorer coming from, there's not enough volunteers. Therefore, for me, what The Hundred is designed to do is to generate and inspire more people to engage in our game than ever before," Hollins said.

"I genuinely believe that The Hundred plays a really important role in achieving that because if it can generate 'water-cooler moments', where people say cricket is sexy and it's engaging and inspiring more people from different audiences, then more of that comes back into the system.

"Cricket is still cool to us, and the core. But it needs to be cool to more people. What makes that challenging and really important to address is that young people now have more distractions than we did. We used to have cricket, rugby, football … That's not the case anymore. In the last round of Sport England funding, I think it was 64 sports that got funding. So by definition, there's a lot more competition for kids' time and attention and passion. That's before you start talking about these devices [mobile phones].

"There's so many distractions now, that we need to make cricket cooler to more people. And by doing that, I think everyone wins. It might not be the same as it's always been, but the world's not the same as it's always been."

Concerns have been expressed about the impact of The Hundred, with PCA chairman Daryl Mitchell warning it could threaten the viability of some of the smaller clubs. However, Hollins said that there were no plans to reduce the number of first-class counties.

He did acknowledge, though, that coming up with something entirely new had been central in securing a return for cricket on free-to-air television when the rights were negotiated in 2017 - despite the ECB denying that 100-ball cricket, which is designed to be completed in two-and-a-half hours, was a made-for-TV product.

Asked whether the BBC would have signed up to broadcasting a county T20 competition, Hollins replied: "No. You'd need to ask them [why]. But their agenda, you can see what they're doing with sport generally, around women's football, their support of the FA Cup. You can see the sort of narrative they produce."

Take ESPN EverywhereDownload the #1 sports app

© 2019 ESPN Internet Ventures. Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Interest-based Ads are applicable to you.
Click to expand...

Gordon Hollins, the latest liar put forward by the cricketing equivalent of the Nazi Party.
 


Crap run of the mill names.

and Leeds Superchargers!! Fail!!!!

The teams, based at the eight Test grounds, will be managed by the host county, in partnership with neighbouring counties.

For instance, London Spirit will be run by a combination of the MCC, the owners of Lord’s, Middlesex, Essex and Northamptonshire, while Trent Rockets will be looked after by Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire.

Dear me. Leicestershire …. the fans cannot be happy. Notts steal all their players as it is and now the team they're supposed to support is the Trent Rockets … named after the River they run right through Nottingham - admittedly the river forms part of the border.

Unlike Leicestershire the River Trent does run through Derbyshire properly - but they are presumably going to be linked with the Leeds team, as are Yorks, Lancs and us. As Ian Dury nearly said … "Reasons to be Cheerful are Zero".

Pity Northants, they're linked with London!
 
Last edited:
NorthCountryBoy said:
Cricket needs it to succeed, even if most of us in here think it's a badtardisation of the game. The demise of local clubs will carry on and on if it doesn't.

People wanting it to fail should think again imo.
Click to expand...

I couldn’t disagree more with you. The reasons cricket is failing at grass roots level is absolutely nothing to do with this ridiculous format, nor will it’s recovery come as a result of its success (or failure).

What’s more, the success of this competition puts the entire county game at its biggest risk of capitulation in my entire lifetime - just look at what FTECB have already forced through in order to give this competition absolute priority above all else.

Cricket wasn’t broken, it just needed a few simple tweaks - those could’ve been implemented within the current setup with ease if they wanted it enough.
 
brandon said:
I couldn’t disagree more with you. The reasons cricket is failing at grass roots level is absolutely nothing to do with this ridiculous format, nor will it’s recovery come as a result of its success (or failure).

What’s more, the success of this competition puts the entire county game at its biggest risk of capitulation in my entire lifetime - just look at what FTECB have already forced through in order to give this competition absolute priority above all else.

Cricket wasn’t broken, it just needed a few simple tweaks - those could’ve been implemented within the current setup with ease if they wanted it enough.
Click to expand...

Cricket was massively broken. Every metric of what was going on at grass roots was on a downer with the exception of female stuff. The TV viewing figures are also shambolic. No kids recognise Jos Buttler.

Where will your county watchers of 30 years be the way it is at present?
 
NorthCountryBoy said:
Cricket was massively broken. Every metric of what was going on at grass roots was on a downer with the exception of female stuff. The TV viewing figures are also shambolic. No kids recognise Jos Buttler.

Where will your county watchers of 30 years be the way it is at present?
Click to expand...

As we've been through many times, there's nothing in this that couldn't have been done in a T20 competition within the county structure. Nothing, not one single thing. Holding a gun to the heads of the counties and forcing this through is a power grab, that's all.

I sincerely hope it fails, and the more that comes out about it the more confident I get.
 
NorthCountryBoy said:
Cricket needs it to succeed, even if most of us in here think it's a badtardisation of the game. The demise of local clubs will carry on and on if it doesn't.

People wanting it to fail should think again imo.
Click to expand...

T20 and some ODIs on free to air could have solved this years ago

We’ve now got cricket lovers alienated and have no idea if there is actually an untapped market who will suddenly turn up

Cricket will be stronger if it succeeds and weaker if it fails. That said, Id love the arrogance of a select few to be shown up and it utterly crash n burn
 
NorthCountryBoy said:
Cricket was massively broken. Every metric of what was going on at grass roots was on a downer with the exception of female stuff. The TV viewing figures are also shambolic. No kids recognise Jos Buttler.

Where will your county watchers of 30 years be the way it is at present?
Click to expand...

Yet absolutely none of that will be rectified by this abortion of a format.

As has been said over and over and over and over again on here and every other cricket forum throughout the country - many things will improve the game WITHOUT marginalising over half of the counties, over half of the players and over about 85% of the cricketing public,

Greavsie said:
Cricket will be stronger if it succeeds and weaker if it fails. That said, Id love the arrogance of a select few to be shown up and it utterly crash n burn
Click to expand...

Stronger for who?
 
Last edited:
brandon said:
Yet absolutely none of that will be rectified by this abortion of a format.

As has been said over and over and over and over again on here and every other cricket forum throughout the country - many things will improve the game WITHOUT marginalising over half of the counties, over half of the players and over about 85% of the cricketing public,



Stronger for who?
Click to expand...

If it succeeds, the profile of the game will be raised to levels not seen in a generation

As a result, participation will go up. Surely that is good for everyone from grassroots up
 
Greavsie said:
If it succeeds, the profile of the game will be raised to levels not seen in a generation

As a result, participation will go up. Surely that is good for everyone from grassroots up
Click to expand...

Depends how you measure ‘success’. I suspect mine and your definition would differ from FTECB’s definition and indeed their intention.

I also have big doubts about how this format will invigorate grass roots participation.
 

Back
Top