Not long after Twenty20 cricket first reared its shiny head to the cricket world back in the noughties, a wise old friend said, “I promise you, they won’t rest until they’ve invented the One1.”
His concept was simple: two teams both face a single ball each and whichever side scores more runs off their one delivery wins the match.
With ten minutes for the change of innings, the whole thing could be done in a quarter of an hour.
It’s ludicrous of course, but I’ve thought back to that amusing idea many times over the years, especially as we’ve seen various truncated forms of cricket become more prevalent.
I thought of it again last year as the English cricket authorities appeared ready to launch The Hundred. Here we go again, I thought, working our way down to one ball each.
Then came the false start thanks to COVID-19, which meant the hypothesising and navel-gazing about The Hundred went on even longer.
Cricket angst was slowly rising as fans worldwide questioned whether we needed another version of the game? This was countered by the prospect that it might be really good.
We had to hold out until this year to watch it actually happen, and the wait, it seems, was worth it.
Despite my sincere hopes to the contrary, the double-header final at Lord’s was both excellent cricket and entertaining. In case you missed it, the Southern Brave won the men’s Hundred competition over the Birmingham Phoenix, while the Oval Invincibles won the women’s title against the Southern Brave (I have no idea who the teams are either).
(Photo by Stu Forster-IDI/IDI via Getty Images)
But it’s watchable, somehow.
If you thought T20 was cricket on steroids, think of the The Hundred as cricket drinking beers and making balloon animals at the same time. It’s full-on alpha cricket, no doubt, but with a feel-good vibe.
Most importantly for England cricket’s governing body, it added some important marketability in a summer dominated by Euro 2020, Wimbledon and, to a lesser extent, the Tokyo Olympics.
The two-Test series against New Zealand, or the old reliable County Championship, certainly weren’t able to compete with those sorts of events – nor did the final of the World Test Championship, as it didn’t involve the home team. Even the current England series against cricketing giants India has taken a while to get started (that may be due to Rory Burns and Dom Sibley’s soporific batting though, of course).
In comparison, The Hundred seems energetic and fresh, like the early days of the Big Bash here in Australia. Accompanied by the hyperbolic commentary of Kevin Pietersen and Shane Warne, and intensely confusing on-screen graphics, over 16 million domestic viewers watched the tournament on TV.
(Photo by Hamish Blair/Getty Images)
Research by the ECB showed that 55 per cent of people who bought tickets had never paid to go to a cricket match in England before.
Statistics like that will get noticed by overseas administrators desperate to boost youth participation rates and TV viewership. My fear is that The Hundred will therefore lead to more format variety in the future.
At the moment, the competition is an English cricket product, but what’s to say that new Hundred-like competitions won’t sprout up internationally?
At the very least, we can expect some of the competition’s time-saving innovations will be adopted. Ironically, that may make things more confusing for cricket fans before it makes things clearer.
What happens, for instance, if the T20 gold standard, the Indian Premier League, decides to move to five-ball overs? Does international cricket then stick with ‘traditional’ T20 and run the risk of going out of date overnight? Presumably there is not room for four different international versions of cricket.
I’m also concerned that more tinkering with formats will confuse cricketers even further. Australia’s best multi-format bowlers are suffering from this problem already. The recent T20 campaigns in Bangladesh and the Caribbean saw Mitch Starc and Josh Hazlewood bowl few slower balls in comparison to the opposition.
It’s understandable. How can they expect to be precise in their unpredictability if they spend half the year practising reliability?
There are benefits that should be taken seriously though.
The men’s and women’s double-header format was huge in enticing big crowds to women’s cricket. The organisers are already promising boosted women’s salaries for next year’s tournament.
Either way, The Hundred will be significant for cricket’s future. The fact that it’s taken so long for the inaugural season to take place has not lessened its impact.
The competition has been a clear success, and in pandemic times, that’s earned my respect. But the question remains: where do we all go from here?
Andre Leslie
Roar Guru
Hi Paul.. thanks for your thoughts. Yes, it will be interesting to see what role the novelty factor plays and how much new people keep coming in the gates each year. I guess that still happens in the BBL, but probably not at the rate it used to. Most people who go and watch a Hurricanes or Heat game these days are presumably fans who have been around for a while.
Ian
Roar Rookie
I keep reading and hearing about what a success this tournaments been and to be fair the TV ratings have been strong on the BBC.No one seems keen to mention that if the current Test series was live on the BBC the ratings would be stronger.What the ECB don't mention when they're telling all and sundry how popular it's all been and how wonderful the crowds are is to tell us how many free tickets have been given out.My brother took my 11 year old nephew to a game at Lords as he was given a couple of free tickets.On his way out of the ground,he was offered free tickets for the next game and was given another 6 to give to his friends!
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Agreed. And it was a leading proposition on my part – “cricket” as in not the game, but the sport, inclusive of administration and governance. Or lack thereof. — The recent ICC statement that “getting cricket into the Olympics is a must” irrespective of what that looks like, is typical. Why? It’s still only going to be the top 16 nations that play, irrespective of whether “106 ICC members and affiliates are on board”. They’re seriously thinking of making it The Hundred” equivalent just to make it fit the Olympics narrow playing window. They’d probably need to play the tournament on artificial grass given limitation on venues versus number of matches that would have to be played, and I wouldn’t past them to do just that.
Paul
Roar Guru
"Is there something fundamentally wrong with cricket "...... sure is and it has nothing to do with the game itself. The "fundamentally wrong" part is the competition from the vested interests who are trying to make money from it. We have the ICC competing with privately owned teams in the IPL, BBL, etc, competing with individual Cricket Boards, all of whom are trying to maximise their investments by attracting as many good players as they can so more people come through the turnstiles and more watch on TV. Completely ridiculous setup because each will try and outdo the others so they can get the big bucks. I don;t know of any other major sport that works in this way and it's killing the game.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Is there something fundamentally wrong with cricket if we have to keep inventing new formats to recapture interest after interest has waned in the most recent format iteration?
Paul
Roar Guru
"Either way, The Hundred will be significant for cricket’s future." How is that Andre? I guess in the short term, it will generate a lot of excitement, just as ODI & T20 cricket did before it. What happens though when the novelty wears off? This is the sort of format that badly needs new people turning up to boost numbers. There'll be a small group who like this format and will likely only go to this format, but the majority IMO will go a few times, then find something else to spend their money on. If the 100 can't generate positive churn, it'll die a death within a decade.
Camo McD
Roar Guru
I agree there's value in having a recognised global format and T20 has provided that with all associates etc able to play recognised T20 matches with more or less the same rules etc. I went to the hundred and it was brilliant with what it has done for women's cricket, the new teams are OK and it seemed to make much more of an effort to be more accessible than say County Cricket. However the format change from 120 to 100 doesn't improve anything in my opinion and I believe the duration of the matches was pretty similar to standard T20s anyway which presumably defeats the purpose. You just get less of a chance to watch particular players as everyone bowls / faces less balls. I doubt they'll rename it the 120 and go from 20x5 to 20x6 but I'd love it if they did.