HUW TURBERVILL: ‘The Hundred’ probably leapt the selachimorpha for me when we discovered it would be 15 six-ball overs, with a tenner tossed in at the end. What about you?
ECB chairman Colin Graves, left, and the Fonz jumping a shark in Happy Days
When did English cricket’s new competition ‘jump the shark’ for you?
For the uninitiated, that is an American term describing a moment when something once great – usually a TV show – reaches a point where it declines in quality and popularity.
It originated in Happy Days when the Fonz, on water-skis, well, jumped over a shark!
Further examples… when Bobby Ewing emerged from the shower in Dallas, and it had all been a dream; or Fallon was abducted by aliens in The Colbys and… [enough dire TV shows… Ed].
‘The Hundred’ probably leapt the selachimorpha for me when we discovered it would be 15 six-ball overs, with a tenner tossed in at the end. My moment had certainly come by the time news leaked a day later that more than one bowler could deliver this epic over.
I suspect many of The Cricketer’s readers – certainly judging by your emails and letters – had lost faith some time ago.
So when did it jump the shark for you? Did you accept…
- English and Welsh cricket needs a T20 rival to the IPL and Big Bash (albeit 17 years after we unveiled the format on a sceptical world)?
- It should be in the summer holidays?
- That it needs some terrestrial coverage?
- Were you relieved that the counties would be paid £1.3m each per year?
- Did you wobble when it became clear that the teams would not, could not, be named after places?
- Were you upset when Taunton and Bristol missed out?
"When does this new cricket cease to actually be cricket?"
If you still did not hop off the bus at 100 balls (deviating from the world standard)… and the 10-ball over… and three bowlers pinging it down… what about the revelation that Joe Root and Ben Stokes will be allocated a team for marketing purposes but will not play as they will be on Test duty (and as the ECB said, according to ESPNcricinfo, “this new audience won’t necessarily know who they are anyway”)?
Some respected cricket folk say wait and see, like Ashley Giles and The Telegraph’s Scyld Berry. Some believe letting the counties ‘keep' T20 was pivotal; others feel that reducing T20 to 100 balls is the price to pay for having a few games back on the Beeb.
Plenty are unhappy, though.
Graves is pictured with Andrew Strauss
The ECB want to capture a new audience, one that is disinclined to attend county games, so we are told.
Fine. There is an untapped audience out there. I was at the West Indies v ICC World XI T20 at Lord’s for Hurricane Relief and there was a sizeable crowd, and most of them seemed to be non-white. It was eye-opening.
But when does this new cricket cease to actually be cricket?
As Graham Gooch told The Cricketer: “Someone just standing there like a baseball player, clearing the front leg, and slogging to leg… I am sorry, but that’s just boring.”
Private Eye parodied the situation in a recent issue. “This new version will differ from traditional cricket in that we’ll be ditching all those tedious overs, bowlers, batsmen, stumps and wickets,” said an (imaginary) ECB spokesman, “and replacing them with centre-forwards, midfielders and goals. The new game will be called ‘football’.”
Satire, of course, but the ECB’s tinkering is reminiscent of America’s proposed adaptations to soccer over the years – bigger goals! Two goalies! Four quarters of 25!
Do we merely accept that a T20 innings cannot be played in 75 minutes? They managed it in 2003. I was there at the Rose Bowl for the first night, Hampshire v Sussex. Yes it was frenetic, but it was done.
Failing that, how about 20 five-ball overs instead? Or better still, 10 overs at one end and 10 from the other? At least it would still be T20.
Yes there is time to sort this all out… but the overs are running out.
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Posted by Chris Rotsey on 18/06/2018 at 09:29
The 100 is insufficiently distinct from T20 and is more likely to cause confusion than to increase attendances.
Posted by Yacob Cajee on 16/06/2018 at 09:18
The ECB fail to recognise that complicating cricket with yet another variation of the game, just makes it less appealing to the masses. Part of football’s appeal is that it’s essentially a simple game. Try explaining cricket to anyone who hasn’t grown up with it (let alone a Frenchman) - a game is played over five days, four days, or one day; in a one day game each side faces 50 six-ball overs, or is it 20? But in the new ECB One Hundred, we play 15 six-ball overs and then one 10-ball over, although, since that will be bowled by up to three bowlers, one 10-ball over could be replaced by two or three overs of variable length. The game is dying, starved of its lifeblood for years by the ECB’s cash-driven decision to take cricket off terrestrial television. One Hundred is like trying to resuscitate using a second-hand car battery and a set of jump leads.
Posted by Hugh Oxburgh on 16/06/2018 at 00:38
Given that Colin Graves is so keen on this silly competition and that he is pursuing George Dobell for criticising it-and (allegedly) using ECB money to do so, that makes it a poisoned chalice as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by Mark Johnson on 15/06/2018 at 18:00
When Eoin Morgan’s non-cricket loving mates were quoted as saying they liked the idea because it would annoy cricket fans-talk about biting the hand that feeds
Posted by Murray Hedgcock on 15/06/2018 at 17:29
The Hundred might have received a more positive reception if it had not been for that ludicrous declaration that the new game would be aimed at people who had never heard of Joe Root and Ben Stokes, but these nonentities would help sell the competition - with the prospect that spectators would not see them play anyway. Letting marketing men take hold of The Summer Game is a sure road to chaos.
Posted by Tim Forrester on 15/06/2018 at 17:26
Totally agree. It is leaving me behind. Here we are in the middle of the summer with fairly reliable weather and there are no Tests and hardly any county games. Personally T20 does nothing for me but I accept it brings in a new audience. But to tinker further with that is taking away all the qualities in cricket which I have always enjoyed. Who is going to care who wins? Where is the subtlety and grace of cricket.? And all to attract an audience primarily drawn by the beer tent and music. It sounds desperately sad to me.
Posted by Nick Taylor on 15/06/2018 at 17:18
In continuation " Sales of tickets for the India Series are up 3% from the corresponding stage four years ago " " More than 50,000 children have signed up for All Stars Cricket " Does Colin Graves know what is happening ?
Posted by Nick Taylor on 15/06/2018 at 17:14
From an interesting piece from Mike Atherton is The Times of June 14th " There will be more international tickets sold this summer than for any outside an Ashes year ". " Advance Sales for the Vitality Blast are up 21% on last year's record breaking numbers " " There will be more international
Posted by Nick Holdsworth on 15/06/2018 at 16:21
Since the perceived market target doesn't actually like cricket perhaps the most sensible bit of marketing would be to not call it cricket but re-brand it as something else.
Posted by Bob Bell on 15/06/2018 at 16:09
20 five ball overs might work - it's not "cricket", but it's more like cricket that the proposed version. For that matter, what's magical about 100 balls. If you want a shorter game (a big if), why not 90 balls in 15 overs? (That's the traditional 6 balls per over if you're reaching for your slide rule.)
Posted by Richard Hoare on 15/06/2018 at 16:03
Another negative is that our women Cricketers will no longer be playing any domestic T20 cricket.
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