THE GOOGLY: Has The Hundred already jumped the shark?

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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