[Cricket] The Hundred

[Nobby Cybergoat]

As I say, T20 has done it's job (it's a hugely important revenue stream for counties) but The Hundred is going to be far better at attracting new cricket fans, IMO: big crowds at the biggest cricket stadiums, all the glitz, the best players and all on terrestrial television.

I wasn't sold on it I have to admit, but it deserves a chance. Just because Sussex aren't represented is no reason to boycott it.

I'm not going to boycott it, but certainly won't be supporting Southern Braveshire

 

[A1X]

As I say, T20 has done it's job (it's a hugely important revenue stream for counties) but The Hundred is going to be far better at attracting new cricket fans, IMO: big crowds at the biggest cricket stadiums, all the glitz, the best players and all on terrestrial television.

I wasn't sold on it I have to admit, but it deserves a chance. Just because Sussex aren't represented is no reason to boycott it.

Agreed 100%. I'll be watching it in the same way I would watch any other cricket match where Sussex aren't in it, interested and appreciating the sport but not invested in it (although hoping some of the England players do well).

 

[Simster]

I'm not going to boycott it, but certainly won't be supporting Southern Braveshire

Rather like the half of England that don't live in a first class county have lived until now I suppose. I'm not supporting anyone for now either, but will probably end up going to The Oval if my son wants to see it.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

Great, but reading between the lines, sales soared in 2019 to give 950,000 fans at 133 games – that's 7,143 fans at each game on average. And that is sales soaring with record receipts for some counties.

Put in context with IPL, PSL, BB, their attendances, their TV rights etc. T20 in this country is not only behind, it's been lapped twice.

Comparing average T20 blast attendances with those of the BBL is obviously misleading - Australian grounds are massively larger than the equivalents in England, so the attendances should be much higher. If Sussex sell out every game (which they weren't far from doing last time the Blast was played in front of full crowds) they'll still only have an average crowd of about 6000.

As a fairer comparison, Surrey consistently sell out or near enough every game at the Oval, similarly Middlesex at Lords.

I'm not sure what the point of the comparison is anyway. The point of any competition should be to play the sport, not to make more money for the ECB than CA get from the Bash.

I have, in any case, decided to stop worrying about it. It's not like anybody born after about 1950 cares what County they're from anyway.

 

[KeegansHairPiece]

Rather like the half of England that don't live in a first class county have lived until now I suppose. I'm not supporting anyone for now either, but will probably end up going to The Oval if my son wants to see it.

Totally agree, while those of us into cricket support our counties, it’s just not that tribal is it - we love cricket.

I was born in Hampshire and grew up there watching cricket, I then moved to Chelmsford where I played and regularly followed Essex and went to games as lived round the corner, then moved to Sussex when I started a family and have supported Sussex since I’ve been here - 17 years now.

Doesn’t take long to get into following a new team, might be anathema to some, but I think watch a few games you naturally start wanting a team to win and on it goes.

I’m old enough to remember the uproar in the 1992 pyjama World Cup when you thought cricket was going to burn in hell for not wearing whites - it’s always been a game that has evolved, all be it at a bit of a glacial pace.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

Rather like the half of England that don't live in a first class county have lived until now I suppose. I'm not supporting anyone for now either, but will probably end up going to The Oval if my son wants to see it.

I can't be bothered to check this, but I'm pretty sure that a comfortable majority of people in England live in a first class county (or in an overlapping city, like Birmingham or Manchester).

It's why the comparison with Australia isn't fair - in Australia you can cover most of the population with 5 or 6 city teams, and they basically line up with the states anyway.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Comparing average T20 blast attendances with those of the BBL is obviously misleading - Australian grounds are massively larger than the equivalents in England, so the attendances should be much higher. If Sussex sell out every game (which they weren't far from doing last time the Blast was played in front of full crowds) they'll still only have an average crowd of about 6000.

As a fairer comparison, Surrey consistently sell out or near enough every game at the Oval, similarly Middlesex at Lords.

I'm not sure what the point of the comparison is anyway. The point of any competition should be to play the sport, not to make more money for the ECB than CA get from the Bash.

I have, in any case, decided to stop worrying about it. It's not like anybody born after about 1950 cares what County they're from anyway.

Hmmm, I'm very proud to be from Sussex ... I guess having sung the song 1000+ times has helped with the indoctrination process

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

Hmmm, I'm very proud to be from Sussex ... I guess having sung the song 1000+ times has helped with the indoctrination process

Enjoy the past. Try to avoid diphtheria, I'm told it's unpleasant.

 

[rippleman]

I concur with all of this except the last sentence. T20 serves its purpose but what cricket is missing when televised from Hove, Taunton or Canterbury is that "big occasion" feel that you only get from a big stadium. I think that is what they are hoping will draw in a new crowd of followers to the game. It's been heavily advertised and my anecdotal experience above suggests that it might well work. It is already visible and being shown on terrestrial TV - two massive ticks as far as I'm concerned.

Ultimately, us Sussex fans might have to move away from the stubborn "the Braves aren't Sussex so I'm not interested" stance or we will be left behind. After all, cricket fans in Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Lincolnshire and Dorset might well wonder if we were actually ever cricket fans in the first place.

I believe the original intention was for the Braves women to play their home games at Hove (with men playing home at the Rose Bowl) but for reasons I don't know, that idea was abandoned. Very disappointing because the womens games I've attended at Hove (KSL, KSL Finals Day and Ashes T20) have been maginificent events, well attended and very exciting with great atmosphere.

I'm not yet as up for the Braves as I am for the Southern Vipers but maybe that's because having no games in Sussex, I don't feel the connection. But I'm sure that will change when we start playing.

 

[Simster]

I can't be bothered to check this, but I'm pretty sure that a comfortable majority of people in England live in a first class county (or in an overlapping city, like Birmingham or Manchester).

It's why the comparison with Australia isn't fair - in Australia you can cover most of the population with 5 or 6 city teams, and they basically line up with the states anyway.

Possibly, but it still ignores most of Wales, the entire South West south of Bristol, the whole of East Anglia and some pretty heavily populated counties that aren't in those regions - Cheshire, Berks, Bucks, Oxon, Beds, Wilts and so on - that includes some pretty big towns and cities: Plymouth, Exeter, Reading, Stoke, Luton, Watford, Bedford, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Ipswich - I'm sure I could go on if I thought about it. I reckon at least 30% of England and Wales are unrepresented in first class cricket.

 

[rippleman]

Comparing average T20 blast attendances with those of the BBL is obviously misleading - Australian grounds are massively larger than the equivalents in England, so the attendances should be much higher. If Sussex sell out every game (which they weren't far from doing last time the Blast was played in front of full crowds) they'll still only have an average crowd of about 6000.

As a fairer comparison, Surrey consistently sell out or near enough every game at the Oval, similarly Middlesex at Lords.

I'm not sure what the point of the comparison is anyway. The point of any competition should be to play the sport, not to make more money for the ECB than CA get from the Bash.

I have, in any case, decided to stop worrying about it. It's not like anybody born after about 1950 cares what County they're from anyway.

You might have misread the room here Sid!

I am extremely proud to be a south saxon. I even refuse to acknowledge the 1888 Local Government Act that split our county in two! If I'm writing my address I will only ever put the county as "Sussex".

I am proud and honoured to have been born and raised in the kingdom of the south saxons (and I was born after 1950!)

 

[KeegansHairPiece]

Comparing average T20 blast attendances with those of the BBL is obviously misleading - Australian grounds are massively larger than the equivalents in England, so the attendances should be much higher. If Sussex sell out every game (which they weren't far from doing last time the Blast was played in front of full crowds) they'll still only have an average crowd of about 6000.

As a fairer comparison, Surrey consistently sell out or near enough every game at the Oval, similarly Middlesex at Lords.

I'm not sure what the point of the comparison is anyway. The point of any competition should be to play the sport, not to make more money for the ECB than CA get from the Bash.

I have, in any case, decided to stop worrying about it. It's not like anybody born after about 1950 cares what County they're from anyway.

It's a really good point, and I agree about your capacity venues. If you could make an English T20 Premier League from:
Durham
Lancashire
Worcestershire
Glamorgan
Nottinghamshire
Middlesex
Surrey
Hampshire

You'd be laughing, each with Test capacity venues, as you say, sold out most of the time, fund them so they could buy the best players in the world to make a competition that is the pinnacle of the format. The rest of the counties in a T20 Championship sharing around their 6k capacities - rest of the counties are going to vote for that though aren't they.

And that is where county cricket is a bit of a behemoth, no real consequence of being utter crap, average or whatever else. The Hundred is exciting because 8 teams all have players we recognise on the international stage. If they could have made it T20 I suspect they would have, but contractually probably couldn't so they'd tried a tweak.

That's all this is. Big Bash = 8 teams. IPL = 8 teams. PSL = 6 teams. Elite level leagues with the world's best players.

 

[vegster]

The BBC are puffing this as a resounding success, " It's the loudest crowd I have ever played in front of, including International Cricket ".... Sounds like lots of the 7,500 crowd that got the free tickets must have been given megaphones and vuvuzelas.
Heard Vaughan puffing this furiously too although he's going to say that if he's paid to summarise, a Yorkshireman knows the value of money..

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

The BBC are puffing this as a resounding success, " It's the loudest crowd I have ever played in front of, including International Cricket ".... Sounds like lots of the 7,500 crowd thar got the free tickets must have been given megaphones and vuvuzelas.
Heard Vaughan puffing this furiously too although he's going to say that if he's paid to summarise, a Yorkshireman knows the value of money..

Yesterday morning they had someone on radio 4 to big it up and she was specifically asked what she thought the negatives might be.


You could hear the gears clunking in her brain as she went through the mental gymnastics of what to say. While she struggled to give an answer it was almost possible to hear the voice in her head screaming "I'm not allowed to say anything negative".

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

Possibly, but it still ignores most of Wales, the entire South West south of Bristol, the whole of East Anglia and some pretty heavily populated counties that aren't in those regions - Cheshire, Berks, Bucks, Oxon, Beds, Wilts and so on - that includes some pretty big towns and cities: Plymouth, Exeter, Reading, Stoke, Luton, Watford, Bedford, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Ipswich - I'm sure I could go on if I thought about it. I reckon at least 30% of England and Wales are unrepresented in first class cricket.

Nearly half of the population of Wales live in Glamorgan, and they play at least one game a season in Colwyn Bay to spread it around. Somerset is south of Bristol. It's generally accepted that people in Cheshire support Lancashire (largely because Cheshire is basically pointless and most of it is either a suburb of Manchester or is about a couple of stops away on the train).

This article attempted to work out which were the most populous English counties - https://citymonitor.ai/community/which-historic-english-county-has-highest-population-3386

The top 10 add up to about 30million, of those 8 are first class counties, and the other 2 (Staffordshire and Cheshire) are dominated by conurbations which include first class grounds (Birmingham and Manchester respectively). I'd guess, from that, that once you add in the other first class counties the percentage of people not covered is significantly less than 30%.

 

[Brovion]

I believe the original intention was for the Braves women to play their home games at Hove (with men playing home at the Rose Bowl) but for reasons I don't know, that idea was abandoned. Very disappointing because the womens games I've attended at Hove (KSL, KSL Finals Day and Ashes T20) have been maginificent events, well attended and very exciting with great atmosphere.

I'm not yet as up for the Braves as I am for the Southern Vipers but maybe that's because having no games in Sussex, I don't feel the connection. But I'm sure that will change when we start playing.

Actually the upside of this is because there is no Sussex team and no matches in Sussex we can support whoever we like. In the IPL I (loosely) support the Chennai Super Kings simply because I worked with a guy from that area who was huge fan and his enthusiasm rubbed off. If I'm going to need a similar 'hook' to pick a 100 team.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

You might have misread the room here Sid!

I am extremely proud to be a south saxon. I even refuse to acknowledge the 1888 Local Government Act that split our county in two! If I'm writing my address I will only ever put the county as "Sussex".

I am proud and honoured to have been born and raised in the kingdom of the south saxons (and I was born after 1950!)

It'll be a cold day in hell before I recognise the 1888 Local Government Act.

Seriously though, given we're discussing domestic cricket on a football forum, it's fair to say we're not representative of the population at large.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Nearly half of the population of Wales live in Glamorgan, and they play at least one game a season in Colwyn Bay to spread it around. Somerset is south of Bristol. It's generally accepted that people in Cheshire support Lancashire (largely because Cheshire is basically pointless and most of it is either a suburb of Manchester or is about a couple of stops away on the train).

This article attempted to work out which were the most populous English counties - https://citymonitor.ai/community/which-historic-english-county-has-highest-population-3386

The top 10 add up to about 30million, of those 8 are first class counties, and the other 2 (Staffordshire and Cheshire) are dominated by conurbations which include first class grounds (Birmingham and Manchester respectively). I'd guess, from that, that once you add in the other first class counties the percentage of people not covered is significantly less than 30%.

Rhos on Sea.

Played there once. The wicket is a an absolute road. The boundaries are tiny. Not a happy (bowling) memory!

 

[Publius Ovidius]

Heard Vaughan puffing this furiously too although he's going to say that if he's paid to summarise, a Yorkshireman knows the value of money..

how very dare you

He is a Lancastrian!

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

It's a really good point, and I agree about your capacity venues. If you could make an English T20 Premier League from:
Durham
Lancashire
Worcestershire
Glamorgan
Nottinghamshire
Middlesex
Surrey
Hampshire

You'd be laughing, each with Test capacity venues, as you say, sold out most of the time, fund them so they could buy the best players in the world to make a competition that is the pinnacle of the format. The rest of the counties in a T20 Championship sharing around their 6k capacities - rest of the counties are going to vote for that though aren't they.

And that is where county cricket is a bit of a behemoth, no real consequence of being utter crap, average or whatever else. The Hundred is exciting because 8 teams all have players we recognise on the international stage. If they could have made it T20 I suspect they would have, but contractually probably couldn't so they'd tried a tweak.

That's all this is. Big Bash = 8 teams. IPL = 8 teams. PSL = 6 teams. Elite level leagues with the world's best players.

I assume Worcestershire is a typo for Warwickshire, or do you just think New Road is nicer than Edgbaston?

I think you need to include Bristol as well, otherwise you'd be cutting of the whole of the south west of England. Ideally I'd say the team down there would be based in Somerset, which is more of a cricketing area, but realistically Bristol can fit about 15000 in with temporary stands and Taunton, erm, can't.

As far as I understand, the Hundred format comes from taking the "appeal to kids and people who don't like cricket" angle and leaning into it. That part of it I don't mind at all, if it's easier for the uninitiated to get into, rock right on.

Surely if you have a closed shop of big teams, there's no consequence for being average or crap either? I'd be fine with a two division league with promotion and relegation, so the smaller teams have a chance to win and the larger teams face consequences for being crap. It's taking the game away from the country at large that's my main problem with the whole thing.

What I really don't understand is why it's considered perfectly reasonable to tell cricket fans that their whole sport needs to be reorganised from the ground up, yet if you made the same arguments to a football supporter (and they're not entirely unreasonable, given the number of games in a season, the issues we're constantly arguing about around racism, and the financial problems faced by many football clubs) you'd expect to go home holding some of your teeth.

Anyway, if the Hundred leads to more people watching and playing cricket, then well done to them. If you look at the crowd at a test match there are obvious issues with swathes of the population not being invested or catered for, and that needs something to be done about it. I'm just not interested, in the same way as I'm not interested in who wins the Champions League or La Liga.