THE SECRET CRICKETER: The Hundred has already begun shrinking the profile of county cricket... and it hasn't even started

The Secret Cricketer has played county cricket for nearly 20 years and represented England. This week he concentrates on The Hundred, the impact on the remainder of the county calendar and the perception of batters' techniques

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England lose a Test series and it's county cricket’s fault. I think I’ve heard that appraisal during my career more times than I’ve scored hundreds. Honestly, it’s not a question of if rather than when domestic cricket got the blame after the inquests into our defeat to New Zealand in the second Test got underway. 

You all know the arguments as to why the LV=Insurance County Championship doesn’t prepare our players – and in particular batsmen - for the demands of Test cricket, although it doesn’t appear to have done Will Young or Matt Henry much harm has it?

But are the ECB prepared to do something about it? Increasingly, the evidence suggests not. 

Look, from its inception the Championship has been played at times of the year when conditions favour bowlers. In England, in April and May, the ball seams and swings. As a batter, you kind of get immune to it the longer you play. Some days, even if you’ve middled everything else and your game seems to be in good order, you’re going to get an unplayable ball from a bowler who might otherwise have given you no problems at all. One solution I have to this is using a Kookaburra ball in April and May which does a lot less and makes it a more even contest between bat and ball. 

That balance evens itself out a bit in September when it’s warmer and pitches and squares are dry, although I have played on a lot of under-prepared wickets in those months prepared by groundsmen under orders to produce a result pitch when promotion or relegation might depend on it. 

So pitches are a problem but not as much as the schedule itself. England don’t start their series against India until August 4, but during the next seven weeks there are only two rounds of Championship games scheduled and some counties are only playing once, including Essex. So for most of our Test players, there is a maximum of four opportunities to bat against the red ball.

I know the ECB has staked millions of pounds and probably its reputation on The Hundred being a success. Those of us who didn’t get a contract for The Hundred are fairly ambivalent towards it, although we recognise that for the greater good of the game it needs to do well. 

What I don’t understand is how it will completely dominate the agenda during the peak weeks of the season. I know some counties are supplying a lot of the players, but there will still be enough to play two or three rounds of Championship cricket. What an opportunity for counties to offer their best academy players the chance to play red-ball cricket in conditions which, theoretically, give them the best chance of prospering and gaining confidence. 

Instead, between July 14 and August 30 there is no four-day cricket at all. The Royal London One-Day Cup is a complete sideshow to The Hundred, with virtually no TV coverage until the final and I would also argue that even before it’s started the profile of the Vitality Blast is being marginalised as well. 

^{Even the start of the Blast has flown under the radar}

Sky Sports used to be all over the Blast, with games on most night. On Tuesday (June 15), with seven games scheduled, I switched on expecting to watch one of them and instead they were showing the Pakistan Super League. A cynic might suggest the ECB have told Sky they’ll knock some money off the next TV contract if they show fewer Blast games and lower its profile as long as they throw the works at their coverage of The Hundred. 

A friend of mine with a couple of cricket-mad boys regularly takes them to his local county ground to watch the Blast. His sons were intrigued by the colourful TV marketing for The Hundred and wanted to go. So he went on his county’s website but there was no information about The Hundred, not even a link to venues near him, so he gave up. "There was probably a website on the TV ad, but those things are all flash, bang, wallop and over in 30 seconds so I missed it," he told me. 

The ECB can’t afford for The Hundred to be a failure and if you’ve got the good of English cricket at heart, as I have, I don’t want it to flop but I will be fascinated to see how popular it is among cricket fans. If there are thousands of empty seats I suspect the media, a lot of whom seem to be against the competition, will be as merciless as when they blame the county game for dodgy technique by our Test batsmen.

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