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The fifth season of The Hundred has started and people are still grumbling that it’s a total waste of time.
The reigning champions the Oval Invincibles brushed aside London Spirit by six wickets on a terrible Lord’s pitch to open this season’s month-long tournament.
With apologies to the women’s match before, which was much more entertaining, this was a bit of a damp squib to get things going.
However many singers, DJs, fireworks and general razzamatazz the organisers throw at the tournament, it still needs the ‘product’ (the match) to be tip top.
Sadly, Tuesday night’s men’s opener wasn’t. London Spirit, who finished bottom of the table last season, were bowled out for a paltry 80 off 94 balls. Only Ashton Turner scored more than 20 and nobody hit a six – the main currency of The Hundred.
With the Invincibles’ top five containing four England white-ball internationals, the game was pretty much done by the time the champions went in to bat.
Invincibles openers Will Jacks and Tawanda Muyeye casually knocked the ball around a bit under no real pressure, until a Hundred marketing bod probably sent a message out to the middle to try and make a game of it.
Muyeye was bowled for 18, with the score on 34. Then Jacks (24), Jordan Cox (5) and Sam Curran (14) all went fairly quickly.
Leaving Captain Sam Billings and the big-hitting Donovan Ferreira to wrap up the match off just 69 balls. The South African clobbering the only six of the game off the last ball.
Yes, that’s right, one six all game. The mums and dads who spent the day convincing their ungrateful, uninterested offspring that the game would be full of explosive boundary hitting would now be spending the whole journey home apologising. I’ve been there.
The result was such a foregone conclusion that the main highlight was a fox running on the Lord’s pitch. Was this another marketing ploy?
The fox gave the bored sounding commentators a couple of overs to discuss the fox’s housing arrangements and mental state, after being thrust into the limelight for a brief moment. I’ll be surprised if the fox clip isn’t in the most watched section on their website.
There’s no denying that the women’s game has benefited greatly from the Hundred, but the men’s game isn’t quite there yet. It wants to be the IPL, but is way off.
So here are a handful of ways that the Hundred organisers could employ to really make this tournament the toast of the English summer of cricket.
1. Ditch the five ball ‘overs’
Five ball ‘overs’ are the gimmick that just isn’t working. Cricket has always been six balls, it’s drummed into you at an early age.
Test, ODI, IPL, county cricket, Big Bash etc etc. all have six ball overs, The Hundred is trying to be quirky on purpose. It’s like trying to introduce kick-ins instead of throw-ins in football, it’s just plain wrong.
The Hundred don’t even use the term overs, they call the five balls a ‘set’. Which makes the game sound like tennis and more importantly is just awful.
2. Turn it into a T20 tournament
With major investment from Indian and American billionaires, the Hundred is already on the verge of becoming a T20 tournament anyway.
Six of the eight teams have already been sold to private investors, while deals for the Oval Invincibles and the Trent Rockets are very close.
These new franchises are already part of IPL and Major League Cricket teams, and several are expecting to have new names next season. The Manchester Super Giants and the Oval Indians will probably be a thing.
This switch is expected to speed up the move to T20. If a UK crowd is still struggling with a 100-ball format the rest of the world will surely have no time for it either.
It mucks up all the players’ stats too.
3. Stop the fixture clash
The Hundred suffers from an overlap with several short-form leagues such as the Caribbean Premier League, Major Cricket League and the African Premier League, as well as the usual slew of international ODIs and Tests.
It’s doing its best to fit into a busy summer of cricket, but it doesn’t have the “stop everything” appeal of the IPL.
Granted, The Hundred is massively hampered by the weather. August is usually the UK’s best summer month, with only a few months to play with either side. There’s not many days to play with.
Until they start putting roofs on British cricket grounds The Hundred is a bit stuck.
4. More Indian superstars
The lack of Indian stars at The Hundred is a massive issue.
BCCI regulations prevent Indian men’s cricketers from playing in overseas T20 leagues while still involved in Indian cricket.
After a truly thrilling England v India series, The Hundred audience is denied seeing Mohammed Siraj continue his assault on the England batters, or Ben Duckett verbals with any Indian player that walks near him.
The benefits of having someone like Rishabh Pant stroll into the middle adds much more glamour and global appeal to the tournament.
On top of that the support for big-name Indian cricketers in the UK would also have a massive impact on the atmosphere at every ground.
5. More international stars
International cricketers are chewed up and spat out by the relentless demand for Test and ODI cricket.
The last thing some of them want after a hard-fought five match Test series is to don a colourful outfit and cram in even more cricket into their busy schedule.
There’s a lot of ‘dog ate my homework’ excuses from various internationals when The Hundred rumbles into view.
A bruised knee, suddenly needs a month on physio table and ‘spending more time with the family’ is the oldest of all the chestnuts.
Although all this unsurprisingly goes away when more money starts getting thrown about. Which brings us nicely on to…
6. Increase the pay
Player salaries have already been increased by 60% for this year’s Hundred tournament. The top men’s players can scoop up to £200,000, while the women are on around £65K, up 30%.
However, the elite players in the IPL are earning millions. There’s a reason why nobody turns the IPL down with a feeble excuse about waiting for the delivery of a new washing machine.
With the arrival of the big franchise owners next season, the wages are expected to climb even further.
7. Sort out team identities
The current teams in The Hundred are scattered hither and thither, and it’s hard to pick who you should truly support, depending on where you are from in the country.
If you are a Geordie you are supposed to support the Northern Super Chargers, aren’t you? But then that’s a Yorkshire team based at Headingley, isn’t it?
What’s the Southern Brave? Is that Cornwall all the way over to Kent?
Why is Joe Root playing for the Trent Rockets, he’s more Yorkshire than a flat cap. Doesn’t the Trent run all the way up to the Humber anyway?
There’s a Welsh team, what about a Scottish one?
The teams are utterly confusing and need to be simplified. Give every county a side or make it city based. London, Manchester and Birmingham are already there – what about the rest?
8. New formats
Add in a few different formats to keep the crowd engaged.
Legendary cricketers having one last thrash, skills challenges or star performers from this season’s tournaments playing against each other.
The Americans are way ahead of the UK on this.
9. Ditch the live bands
The band/singer you’ve never heard of in the gap between the women’s and men’s game feels utterly pointless.
Nobody in the crowd seems to be paying them the slightest bit of attention, especially as they are all facing the wrong way to the temporary stage. This must be seriously depressing for the performer’s ego.
The commentators are contractually obliged to say how great the performance was and that the entire crowd were up and dancing. They weren’t, stop lying to me goddammit.
The only people dancing are the PRs who support the band, visibly trying to get a handful of 60-year-old men halfway through a cheese sandwich to get excited about a 19-year old singer that they have never heard of.
This is too much of a culture clash.
American-style crowd cams or on-field bowling/batting/fielding challenges with financial rewards is a much better route to go down and much more engaging for the whole family.
10. More animals
As the opening game of this year’s Hundred proved, there’s nothing quite like an animal who fancies a bit of a wander on a large patch of grass.
We’ve had alligators at the golf, cats at football, a fox at the cricket and, of course, the pigeons at Wimbledon.
Wimbledon spectators always cackle with delight when a clueless pigeon wanders close to the court. It’s usually the highlight of their day at the tennis… the spectators’, not the pigeon. The pigeon preferred the McEnroe Connors era.
So letting loose a hungry bear or one of the big cats onto the field if the over rate slows to a crawl or the batters haven’t hit a six in the last five balls will really spice the match up.
Failing that, the dog who won Britain’s Got Talent will do.
11. Tell the traditionalists to get off their high horse
Yes, this is a bit brutal. But traditionalists ruin the progression of sport, and not just cricket. One of the top prizes in golf is an ill-fitting jacket… a jacket!!! Explain that to an 11-year-old.
We all like it the way it used to be, but sometimes you have to embrace change or the sport will die.
The Hundred and other T20 leagues are the gateway drug to the heroine that is Test cricket and if you get hooked on that you’ll never leave. Test cricket is always on the look out for new addicts.
But thanks to technology, Generation Z and Generation Alpha have the attention spans of a goldfish. Sitting through a five day Test, which could become a draw, is torture to the majority.
Fifty over cricket is dying on its arse, and even T20 can drag in the middle overs.
The youth want Boom Boom Afridi cricket and no amount of free foam hands and paper fours and sixes is going to change their minds.
Sorry traditionalists but you’ll need to find something else to grumble about. Ask Nigel Farage for some ideas perhaps.
Read next: Revealed: The 7 highest individual scores in The Hundred
The post 11 ways The Hundred could be improved: New format, India superstars, hungry bears appeared first on Cricket365.
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