The Hundred

Early days, but the Sky coverage, & in particular the commentators, have the edge over the BBC. It's down to personal choice, but Tuffers & Vaughan don't work for me. Both are regulars on Test match special. but TV & radio require different skills. I was an admirer of Vaughan as a player, & captain, but less so as a pundit & commentator.

Last nights clash between Northern Superchargers & Welsh Fire was what the tournament should be about, plenty of fours & sixes, played on a good batting wicket. Very strange the watch Bairstow as captain of Welsh Fire smash a half-century at Headingley to almost silence from the crown where he's looked upon as a hero. Great advert for the game, with Harry Brook taking his Blast form into the Hundred, a future England star, no doubt.
Jump forward 24 hours & we get a tired turning wicket at Old Trafford, with Birmingham Phoenix unable to bat the hundred balls, 87 all out, is not what the crowd has come to see. Granted that Birmingham didn't help themselves with some brainless batting but, this is taking home advantage to the extreme. After a loss in their first match away to the Incincibles, they play on a used surface, for their first home fixture of 7. There is a case for neutral groundsman, which we had in the World Cup in 2019.

Well that was a quick game ! A 6 wicket win by the Original over the Phoenx, getting home with 27 balls remaining.

The home team, Trent Rockets, turned the game around in a low scoring contest on another tricky used wicket. Alex Hales found it hard to find the boundaries & lost the strike as wickets fell at the other end. Stokes dropped a catch on the boundary which went for six which was a game changer.

how arevwe gauging the competition now are we finding it is adding something different to the crickety gamer we love??

How exactly is this so different to T20?? That finish last night has been seen in T20 and indeed in the culmination of countless 50 over matches too.

Surely if you are going to introduce a new format, then the difference should be more than merely 20 deliveries per inns?? What am I missing?? All the while, the start of the Royal London. Completely ignored!!

I commend sky, however, for throwing every hyped up cliche/superlative at it to try and convince everyone!!

(26-07-2021 21:35 )lovebabes56 Wrote:  how arevwe gauging the competition now are we finding it is adding something different to the crickety gamer we love??

Short answer NO!! (or not yet)

(27-07-2021 15:13 )hornball Wrote:  How exactly is this so different to T20?? That finish last night has been seen in T20 and indeed in the culmination of countless 50 over matches too.

Surely if you are going to introduce a new format, then the difference should be more than merely 20 deliveries per inns?? What am I missing?? All the while, the start of the Royal London. Completely ignored!!

thats my biggest problem with this 100, its just a champions league for cricket, giving the 8 richest clubs more money and power,
leaving the smaller county's the Royal London a great cup thats been producing good games for ages and is more important to England one day cricket into a League cup somewhere to play your under 21's ans 2nd 11 as most the first team has been took away by the big 8,
i see no reason why the t20 cant be just limited to 90mins a side like when it started and everyone could then be involved

^^ I don't know how the finances work, as the whether any money is filtered down to the smaller counties. I'm a big supporter of protecting the 18 First Class County system. All the tweeks & changes are immaterial, all the ECB wanted was a franchise tournament. Compared to the Blast all we get is one ball an over less or a set as the 5 balls are now called. With the amount of wides & no-balls is hardly any difference. Bowling 10 ball from each end to speed up the game, & the tactical option of bowling the same bowler for 2 sets or 10 balls is a decent addition. The time cut-off, is a good innovation, nothing has worked in any form of cricket to speed up the game, & I wasn't a fan of the 5 run penalty imposed in the Blast. In the Hundred the fielding side has to bring in an extra fielder, which is a better idea.

I haven't counted up, but for what you would call a smaller county, Somerset have been quite hard hit by the Hundred, a Yorkshire or a Surrey are slightly better placed to cope with the loss of their 10 players but Somerset less so, & it's a measure of how successful they have been. It just makes the Royal London Cup a really mixed competition, with some sides hit harder than others.

(27-07-2021 19:25 )Boomerangutangangbang Wrote:  ^^ I don't know how the finances work, as the whether any money is filtered down to the smaller counties.

The 18 counties are being paid £1.3m each.