The International Cricket Thread

[Gareth]

The Hundred hasn’t affected this squad though has it? It didn’t hamper their development as international white ball players.

It has though, we raced through an Ashes series to get half the summer clear for it, arguably those in the Ashes peaked for that and offered little to the 50 over side, we played a whole domestic 50 over comp with pretty much zero appearances from the World Cup squad, the standard wasn’t great but it never would be if top domestic players are excluded.  Had the Blast took place when the nonsense was on it would have been understandable as that is a format with a World Cup in it.

[Villan For Life]

The Hundred hasn’t affected this squad though has it? It didn’t hamper their development as international white ball players.

It has though, we raced through an Ashes series to get half the summer clear for it, arguably those in the Ashes peaked for that and offered little to the 50 over side, we played a whole domestic 50 over comp with pretty much zero appearances from the World Cup squad, the standard wasn’t great but it never would be if top domestic players are excluded.  Had the Blast took place when the nonsense was on it would have been understandable as that is a format with a World Cup in it.

The Ashes was played early because of the 50 over World Cup starting in early October, it was nothing to do with the Hundred.

[Gareth]

So if the Hundred hadn’t got to be shoe horned into the calendar the Ashes could have been played to finish in August rather than ramming 5 tests on top of each other to finish by end of July

[Monty]

Fundamentally I'm happy The Hundred has been a relative failure, it would've been so much worse had it succeeded, I hate it, it's stupid, it's the death of everything I love about cricket and I hope it burns in hell.

[Gareth]

Fundamentally I'm happy The Hundred has been a relative failure, it would've been so much worse had it succeeded, I hate it, it's stupid, it's the death of everything I love about cricket and I hope it burns in hell.

Agree, I’m not fundamentally opposed to some form of franchise cricket to help subsidise our domestic structure…it’s trying to invent a format that is utterly ridiculous with NO international value that grinds my gears. 

[Risso]

Fundamentally I'm happy The Hundred has been a relative failure, it would've been so much worse had it succeeded, I hate it, it's stupid, it's the death of everything I love about cricket and I hope it burns in hell.

Agree, I’m not fundamentally opposed to some form of franchise cricket to help subsidise our domestic structure…it’s trying to invent a format that is utterly ridiculous with NO international value that grinds my gears. 

Agreed, we just didn't need T20 minus 20, utterly ridiculous.

[PaulWinch again]

Well done Afghanistan. Also further demonstrates how woeful England have been.

[tomd2103]

Well who knows, but I think the rebrand has helped mean it carved a path as something “new”. That probably made it easier to engage a new audience and also made it more appealing to the broadcasters. As a whole I think there were 14m odd viewers for the Hundred in 2022, that’s not a small number.

I’ll be honest I find it hard to engage with, but I’m not the target audience.

I suppose that could be the case Paul, where that initial interest was sparked by something 'new' and different.  Would be interesting to know whether those viewing figures held this year though.

I think it was the other Paul who said that it risks become a bit of an echo chamber on here and it's a fair point, as I like many others seem to dislike it immensely.  The two main positives I've heard repeated are the broadcast deal it has secured with SKY and the BBC up to 2028 and thsg money is filtered down to counties and that it has been good for the women's game.

I would love to hear the point of view of someone who is a real advocate of it and is entirely honest about it (including the real financial picture around it and doesn't talk about the big crowds without mentioning the number of free tickets that are given away etc.) as I just don't see it.

[charlatan]

Well done Afghanistan. Also further demonstrates how woeful England have been.

How? They had both already beaten England easily and one of them was always very likely to beat the other.

[PaulWinch again]

Well Afghanistan very comfortably comfortably coped with a weakened Sri Lankan bowling attack. England got completely rolled by them, that’s kind of the point.

[paul_e]

Well who knows, but I think the rebrand has helped mean it carved a path as something “new”. That probably made it easier to engage a new audience and also made it more appealing to the broadcasters. As a whole I think there were 14m odd viewers for the Hundred in 2022, that’s not a small number.

I’ll be honest I find it hard to engage with, but I’m not the target audience.

I suppose that could be the case Paul, where that initial interest was sparked by something 'new' and different.  Would be interesting to know whether those viewing figures held this year though.

I think it was the other Paul who said that it risks become a bit of an echo chamber on here and it's a fair point, as I like many others seem to dislike it immensely.  The two main positives I've heard repeated are the broadcast deal it has secured with SKY and the BBC up to 2028 and thsg money is filtered down to counties and that it has been good for the women's game.

I would love to hear the point of view of someone who is a real advocate of it and is entirely honest about it (including the real financial picture around it and doesn't talk about the big crowds without mentioning the number of free tickets that are given away etc.) as I just don't see it.

I'm not an advocate for it, and I don't think you'll find one, but I think it's worth revisiting why the competition exists. For me the ECB are responsible for the most significant, and impactful change the game has ever seen in the form of t20.

They created it and showed the world that a version of the sport which lasted a few hours had huge appeal to drive attendances and sponsorship and 'save' the sport in a lot of ways. At the time it was nearly as controversial as the hundred is now but people quickly got onside with it and a new 3 format balance was established.

The problem, from the ECB point of view, is that India came along and stole it from them, creating the premier version of the competition and becoming the global audience tournament that attracts the big money. A big part of the reason for that was the draft which couldn't really happen with a county based competition so a city franchise tournament was inevitable.

The Hundred therefore came about from them wanting both a new franchise based competition that could have all the excitement of the drafting but also to open up potential new investment by creating a competition that wasn't in the shadow of the IPL. I don't think it's worked very well in either case but it's clearly what they were going for.

The big success was to put womens and mens games on the same ticket.

[Risso]

Once India decided to run with T20, England didn't stand a chance. The most popular, if not only major sport in a country of nearly 1.5 billion people. All the Hundred has done is dilute one of the areas of the game we were genuinely very good at.

[olaftab]

Well done Afghanistan. Also further demonstrates how woeful England have been.

How? They had both already beaten England easily and one of them was always very likely to beat the other.

Whilst disappointed at England's demise I am excited by Afghanistan's rise in this competition. They play cricket under enormous difficulty. ICC sorry BCCI need to provide them mure support.

[simboy]

Once India decided to run with T20, England didn't stand a chance. The most popular, if not only major sport in a country of nearly 1.5 billion people. All the Hundred has done is dilute one of the areas of the game we were genuinely very good at.

The concept of the 100 was dreamt up by the ECB to appease Sky I think. I read something on line that without Sky money most of the non-test counties would collapse, i am not sure about women's cricket, but again its a good revenue source. It perhaps represent the way the ECB see UK cricket moving, to a concentrated feed for the international team. Unlike football no oil state is going to swoop in to save Gloucestershire.

there has to be a fundamental restructure if the game here is to survive, with a reprioritising. Some counties are doing that better than others. I think Warwickshire have belatedly recognised the talent pool with local clubs and leagues, [not just the Birmingham league] they have around. 

I dislike the 100 as a game. It impacts detrimentally  on the county game 4 day game and a decent 50 over competition. It still seems incredulous to me that a D'Ollivera was playing his home cricket at Edgbaston for the 100  ... but the revenue it brings in may have a greater impact.

[tomd2103]

Well who knows, but I think the rebrand has helped mean it carved a path as something “new”. That probably made it easier to engage a new audience and also made it more appealing to the broadcasters. As a whole I think there were 14m odd viewers for the Hundred in 2022, that’s not a small number.

I’ll be honest I find it hard to engage with, but I’m not the target audience.

I suppose that could be the case Paul, where that initial interest was sparked by something 'new' and different.  Would be interesting to know whether those viewing figures held this year though.

I think it was the other Paul who said that it risks become a bit of an echo chamber on here and it's a fair point, as I like many others seem to dislike it immensely.  The two main positives I've heard repeated are the broadcast deal it has secured with SKY and the BBC up to 2028 and thsg money is filtered down to counties and that it has been good for the women's game.

I would love to hear the point of view of someone who is a real advocate of it and is entirely honest about it (including the real financial picture around it and doesn't talk about the big crowds without mentioning the number of free tickets that are given away etc.) as I just don't see it.

I'm not an advocate for it, and I don't think you'll find one, but I think it's worth revisiting why the competition exists. For me the ECB are responsible for the most significant, and impactful change the game has ever seen in the form of t20.

They created it and showed the world that a version of the sport which lasted a few hours had huge appeal to drive attendances and sponsorship and 'save' the sport in a lot of ways. At the time it was nearly as controversial as the hundred is now but people quickly got onside with it and a new 3 format balance was established.

The problem, from the ECB point of view, is that India came along and stole it from them, creating the premier version of the competition and becoming the global audience tournament that attracts the big money. A big part of the reason for that was the draft which couldn't really happen with a county based competition so a city franchise tournament was inevitable.

The Hundred therefore came about from them wanting both a new franchise based competition that could have all the excitement of the drafting but also to open up potential new investment by creating a competition that wasn't in the shadow of the IPL. I don't think it's worked very well in either case but it's clearly what they were going for.

The big success was to put womens and mens games on the same ticket.

Sorry Paul, I didn't mean that you were an advocate, just that you had said that it was thoroughly disliked by a certain section of cricket lovers (probably well represented on here) and the risk was an echo chamber that didn't acknowledge positives that others might see.  I thought that was a fair point.

I dislike it immensely and would be pleased it it was scrapped tomorrow, but I don't think it is likely to be honest.  Last year I went to a dinner where Paul Farbrace was guest speaker (he was still at Warwickshire at the time).  When it was opened up for questions, the first question was about the Hundred.  His pretty blunt response was that the SKY deal meant that the counties saw money from it.  I do actually wonder if the counties are that opposed to it in reality as long as they can play the 50 over tournament during that window.  That way they get the revenue from a full Blast programme and the Hundred money on top.