[Cricket] The Hundred

[KeegansHairPiece]

I didn’t give a stat did i? I am quite involved with cricket in the Midlands and loads of clubs here are oversubscribed. Clubs are folding due to lack of people to keep the grounds, selling pitches to housing developers etc. I don’t understand where all of these newly interested kids are supposed to go. That is ignoring the fact that most kid cricket has stopped now anyway due to school holidays and our leagues are finished because players go on holiday etc.

So is the idea that 7 year olds get excited about cricket and then can’t do it until April. Who remembers when they were 7? At that age the 6 week summer holiday felt like a lifetime so roll forward 8 months and will they be nagging parents to join cricket or back on the Xbox/playing football?

I don’t see the plan.

Schools is the key, we all know 50+% of professional cricketers come from 6% of schools. Cricket has to get into state schools because they don't have the budgets to buy all the equipment. Think this is what the 5 year 'Inspiring Generations' plan is all about carrying on from Chance to Shine. Doesn't matter if it's plastic bats in a Primary sports hall, got to get the kids wanting to play the game whatever form it takes. No reason schools can't be playing cricket through Autumn Spring and Summer terms. You get them interesting in playing in September, they'll be joining clubs in April.

 

[de la zouch]

[tell Athers he’s talking nonsense as he makes the same claim in his article in the Times! A quick google search found plenty of articles. BTW which of the 3 hundred hater quota do you hit:
Pale - white
Male - self explanatory
Stale - over 50
QUOTE=Berty23;9940113]This nonsense about people saying t20 would kill cricket has got to stop. It is just lies. Some traditionalists didn’t like it but it was completely different to this because it used existing teams and was just a shorter game. The moaning started when a game was rain affected and it was five overs. I seem to recall Ali brown kicking off about it being silly.

But please share all the negativity at the time - the internet was about at the time so please provide the links. All I remember is going to loads of matches and it being great fun. I don’t remember people saying it would kill counties but that is because they didn’t. They thought it could harm the first class game but that is completely different to a complete ripping up of the game’s structure by creating new teams.

Lots of people claim this is “exactly the same” as opposition to t20 but it is completely different.[/QUOTE]

 

[KeegansHairPiece]

So who leads the development of youth cricketers? The England players don’t just appear - the majority come through county age groups. Counties obviously don’t make a profit from their age group cricket so if they can’t subsidise this where will the players come from?

Counties are already subsidised to one degree or another. What better way than the counties all get similar funding for youth cricket, rather than setting their own budgets they are set up as equal schools of excellence. I don't know, I haven't worked out all the details of my plan yet.

 

[Gwylan]

I didn’t give a stat did i? I am quite involved with cricket in the Midlands and loads of clubs here are oversubscribed. Clubs are folding due to lack of people to keep the grounds,

Not in Sussex they're not - we have the biggest cricket league in the world. I can't remember how many new teams joined it this year, but it was quite a lot. Our club has gone from two adult teams two years ago to four men's and one women's team.

But I agree that the timing of The Hundred is bonkers. If the target audience is kids, why start a competion just as schools close for the summer and clubs stop their junior games?

So who leads the development of youth cricketers?

The clubs of course. We have a massive number of kids coming through. There is an issue with kids dropping out of the game at 14, 15, 16. It's something that we've been talking about at the club. The problem is that the kids come up against private school students who have been given extensive coaching whereas many of the state school pupils may have no cricket at school and get, maybe, an hour a week at a club.

We'll have a pathway to elite cricket because there are enough private school players but that's no way forward. Are we really going to pick a national team from just 7% of the population?

 

[um bongo molongo]

Counties are already subsidised to one degree or another. What better way than the counties all get similar funding for youth cricket, rather than setting their own budgets they are set up as equal schools of excellence. I don't know, I haven't worked out all the details of my plan yet.

This is the thing that people are missing I think. They’re worried about the threat to county cricket, but that’s already as dead as the parrot in the Monty Python sketch. I’m a very keen cricket fan, always go to tests in London, and some abroad, and still play weekly, but few I know watch or even follow county cricket, and none watch the 4 day stuff. And one of the reasons for the franchise system is to concentrate the talent - The Big Bash and IPL have shown that’s what people want to see - the biggest names playing each other (and telling from Morgan’s interview today that’s what the players want too). There’s simply too much mediocre cricket across the spectrum. Someone suggested ‘regional’ franchises that play across a few grounds (eg a SW side that plays Taunton and Cardiff, a Southern side that plays Hove and Southampton), a NW side that plays Liverpool/Manchester/Leeds, a SE side that plays Chelmsford / Canterbury and so on. That should likely be how ‘County’ cricket should go as well - would create a higher standard ‘top tier’ in all formats. But would literally require the Turkeys to vote for Xmas. As others have said, terrestrial TV is also essential.

 

[Berty23]

Not in Sussex they're not - we have the biggest cricket league in the world. I can't remember how many new teams joined it this year, but it was quite a lot. Our club has gone from two adult teams two years ago to four men's and one women's team.

But I agree that the timing of The Hundred is bonkers. If the target audience is kids, why start a competion just as schools close for the summer and clubs stop their junior games?



The clubs of course. We have a massive number of kids coming through. There is an issue with kids dropping out of the game at 14, 15, 16. It's something that we've been talking about at the club. The problem is that the kids come up against private school students who have been given extensive coaching whereas many of the state school pupils may have no cricket at school and get, maybe, an hour a week at a club.

We'll have a pathway to elite cricket because there are enough private school players but that's no way forward. Are we really going to pick a national team from just 7% of the population?

Obviously clubs. But you need to gather the best players together for higher level coaching. That is the point. Currently counties fulfil that role. Not sure how it works elsewhere but in Warwickshire there are four district squads which are all overseen by Warwickshire. The best from the districts play county.

Without counties where will the transition happens from youth in clubs to playing franchise cricket? That is the bit I have not seen explained.

 

[um bongo molongo]

Not in Sussex they're not - we have the biggest cricket league in the world. I can't remember how many new teams joined it this year, but it was quite a lot. Our club has gone from two adult teams two years ago to four men's and one women's team.

But I agree that the timing of The Hundred is bonkers. If the target audience is kids, why start a competion just as schools close for the summer and clubs stop their junior games?



The clubs of course. We have a massive number of kids coming through. There is an issue with kids dropping out of the game at 14, 15, 16. It's something that we've been talking about at the club. The problem is that the kids come up against private school students who have been given extensive coaching whereas many of the state school pupils may have no cricket at school and get, maybe, an hour a week at a club.

We'll have a pathway to elite cricket because there are enough private school players but that's no way forward. Are we really going to pick a national team from just 7% of the population?

Completely agree with this. The schools are a red herring in my opinion. Not least because they’re not at school for a large chunk of the season. Investment in local clubs to outreach in to communities, and ensuring a ‘bridge’ from colts to senior is the key. I went to state school and barely played there, but my dad played for Shoreham and so I played all colts levels and then progressed to seniors. But I saw all the way through the colts years how stacked against state school kids the odds were - not least ‘selectors’ at Sussex youth levels often being Private school coaches. They need to proactively invest in that structure to cast the net wider (as India are doing now, boosted by the success of the IPL, which is starting to see youngsters coming through at senior level from different backgrounds than has been seen traditionally.

 

[Berty23]

[tell Athers he’s talking nonsense as he makes the same claim in his article in the Times! A quick google search found plenty of articles. BTW which of the 3 hundred hater quota do you hit:
Pale - white
Male - self explanatory
Stale - over 50
QUOTE=Berty23;9940113]This nonsense about people saying t20 would kill cricket has got to stop. It is just lies. Some traditionalists didn’t like it but it was completely different to this because it used existing teams and was just a shorter game. The moaning started when a game was rain affected and it was five overs. I seem to recall Ali brown kicking off about it being silly.

But please share all the negativity at the time - the internet was about at the time so please provide the links. All I remember is going to loads of matches and it being great fun. I don’t remember people saying it would kill counties but that is because they didn’t. They thought it could harm the first class game but that is completely different to a complete ripping up of the game’s structure by creating new teams.

Lots of people claim this is “exactly the same” as opposition to t20 but it is completely different.

[/QUOTE]

I am tanned and 42. I coach sports at weekends and have coached kids into the county set up for hockey and cricket. Two of the girls I have coached are now in the England hockey set up. I have a daughter who was playing hard ball cricket (mostly nets with the boys) at 8 years old. I do most of my coaching as a volunteer because I am passionate about getting kids engaged with sports. I have hardly missed a finals day for t20 because I love it. I still prefer test cricket but also enjoyed following England in the 07 World Cup in West Indies.

I regularly go with my family to t20 matches at Warwickshire and we certainly go to a Somerset match (whatever format) when we are down visiting my mum in Devon.

Share these stories about how it would end the county structure. I am genuinely interested. All I remember is people moaning it would impact first class cricket, which is a completely different discussion.

Nice try with the generalisations though - always good to see resort to name calling because it shows they don’t have much to contribute to a discussion.

 

[Gwylan]

Obviously clubs. But you need to gather the best players together for higher level coaching. That is the point. Currently counties fulfil that role. Not sure how it works elsewhere but in Warwickshire there are four district squads which are all overseen by Warwickshire. The best from the districts play county.

Without counties where will the transition happens from youth in clubs to playing franchise cricket? That is the bit I have not seen explained.

Sorry, I misunderstood, I hadn't realised that you were talking about the franchise system,

This is the thing that people are missing I think. They’re worried about the threat to county cricket, but that’s already as dead as the parrot in the Monty Python sketch. I’m a very keen cricket fan, always go to tests in London, and some abroad, and still play weekly, but few I know watch or even follow county cricket, and none watch the 4 day stuff.

Speak for yourself. I am only interested in the four-day games (so are most of my friends). And test cricket certainly isn't dying a death - we get very good crowds for it . And we need the four-day game as preparation for five-day ones.

There are two problems with the franchise system. One, as Berty points out, is who is going to develop the players of the future? These elite players have all come through the county system and you need something to replicate it.

The second issue is that franchise work in areas where there's one big population centre but cricket in England isn't like that. Yorkshire contains Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Hull and Middlesbrough; Lancashire contains Liverpool and Manchester, Hampshire contains Southampton and Portsmouth etc. If you think that someone from Manchester will support a Liverpool team, I'm afraid that you know very little about local rivalry. But someone from Manchester will support a Lancashire team.

I'm not the slightest bit interested in the 100 because who's my team? The one near Crystal Palace or the one near Portsmouth. Even if the format were a good one, I have no affinity to either place.

 

[Guinness Boy]

T20 is cricket for people who don't like cricket.

The Hundred is cricket for people who can't count up to six twenty times.

 

[Berty23]

Counties are already subsidised to one degree or another. What better way than the counties all get similar funding for youth cricket, rather than setting their own budgets they are set up as equal schools of excellence. I don't know, I haven't worked out all the details of my plan yet.

Yes they are by the ECB. Until now the ecb has understood that no counties means no England players. If the scrap counties and move to these franchises then the whole of the south west doesn’t have a team. How will that grow the sport?

Re state schools - agreed cricket is so hard for them. They can only have Astro wickets and they don’t play enough sport to get good enough for many competitive games. My lad goes to a state secondary and they play at it but don’t really have matches so it is a bit pointless.

The county system is rigged towards independent schools - agree with that. Some counties had coaching week last week when state schools had not yet broken up ffs. They have the best coaches and the best facilities. Cricket benefits massively from both whereas football is far easier for state schools.

Investment in state schools would be great but given the ecb lied about sharing matches at different grounds in franchises, why would anyone believe they will provide proper investment in schools?

 

[de la zouch]

Simple answer would be 2.5 / 3

Don’t give a ff about your family achievements #weirdo

I am tanned and 42. I coach sports at weekends and have coached kids into the county set up for hockey and cricket. Two of the girls I have coached are now in the England hockey set up. I have a daughter who was playing hard ball cricket (mostly nets with the boys) at 8 years old. I do most of my coaching as a volunteer because I am passionate about getting kids engaged with sports. I have hardly missed a finals day for t20 because I love it. I still prefer test cricket but also enjoyed following England in the 07 World Cup in West Indies.

I regularly go with my family to t20 matches at Warwickshire and we certainly go to a Somerset match (whatever format) when we are down visiting my mum in Devon.

Share these stories about how it would end the county structure. I am genuinely interested. All I remember is people moaning it would impact first class cricket, which is a completely different discussion.

Nice try with the generalisations though - always good to see resort to name calling because it shows they don’t have much to contribute to a discussion.[/QUOTE]

 

[Berty23]

Sorry I meant to say re people comparing to t20 launch - let’s see people making the case for the hundred not on the payroll. Athers is an excellent pundit but he is paid a wage by sky.

Ebony RB didn’t used to like it but was convinced by the marketing - she was the marketing. They scrapped the women’s t20 to make this look like a win!

 

[Berty23]

Simple answer would be 2.5 / 3

Don’t give a ff about your family achievements #weirdo


I am tanned and 42. I coach sports at weekends and have coached kids into the county set up for hockey and cricket. Two of the girls I have coached are now in the England hockey set up. I have a daughter who was playing hard ball cricket (mostly nets with the boys) at 8 years old. I do most of my coaching as a volunteer because I am passionate about getting kids engaged with sports. I have hardly missed a finals day for t20 because I love it. I still prefer test cricket but also enjoyed following England in the 07 World Cup in West Indies.

I regularly go with my family to t20 matches at Warwickshire and we certainly go to a Somerset match (whatever format) when we are down visiting my mum in Devon.

Share these stories about how it would end the county structure. I am genuinely interested. All I remember is people moaning it would impact first class cricket, which is a completely different discussion.

Nice try with the generalisations though - always good to see resort to name calling because it shows they don’t have much to contribute to a discussion.

[/QUOTE]

Thanks good chat.

Not my family achievements. The county and international are others. Sorry you ran out of points for a discussion will have to put you on ignore now because it is pointless coming on here for name calling.

 

[amexer]

Interesting to read this thread and pleased like me a lot of cricket lovers on here. The amount of colts from 8 to 16 playing for clubs in Sussex is huge.and run by volunteers. I am not involved in a football club but would guess there are more youngsters playing cricket. than football. As a matter of interest when I played football there were 14/15 leagues to Sussex Sunday League. I think there are now about 5. Shame but It is just a fact that far fewer now play sport.
Going back to cricket it has always been understandable that mainly the better players continue after the age of 16.
Because of time constraints a lot of 20/20 games for colts. Good they are taking part but not easy to always get all involved. Therefore good if mens section has several teams so better youngsters can play in longer format when have longer to bat/bowl.
On to pro game. First off all absolute scandalous that no first class cricket to watch at Hove for 6 weeks in middle of summer. and hope this circus coming up fails. Apart from very occasional 20/20 game I only watch Championship and 50 over games.. Have given up membership as no interest in watching in my coat in April.May and September.. As far as 50 over I would rather watch club cricket than pay to watch 2nd teams. These are the reasons not many will watch these games plus very rarely see best players. Not because no interest.
To sum up 20/20 cricket has been great for finance and new audience and Hundred is just not needed, Another nail into County cricket

 

[Gwylan]

Incidentally, while I agree that the 4-day game does not usually get great attendances (although it's better than some people make it out to be), there's been little effort by the ECB to make it relevant.

Why not start games at 2.00 and finish at 8.00 - all grounds have floodlights now, so it's not a problem. You'd have to improve the over rate, but that could be done. Or perhaps a 4.00 to 10.00 game?

Why not experiment with pricing: at the moment, non-members would pay £80 to watch all four days of a Sussex game - introduce a £50 match ticket for all days.

Why not have a double-header so you have a kids or women's game before the match started?

Why not have test match tickets reserved for people who have attended a CC game in the previous season?

Why not a competition where kids can bowl at one of the pros in the nets, with rewards for getting one out?

The only changes that we've seen in the CC since I've been watching cricket is to move to two divisions and to move from three days to four. Let's look at more innovation and get people back

 

[KeegansHairPiece]

Yes they are by the ECB. Until now the ecb has understood that no counties means no England players. If the scrap counties and move to these franchises then the whole of the south west doesn’t have a team. How will that grow the sport?

Re state schools - agreed cricket is so hard for them. They can only have Astro wickets and they don’t play enough sport to get good enough for many competitive games. My lad goes to a state secondary and they play at it but don’t really have matches so it is a bit pointless.

The county system is rigged towards independent schools - agree with that. Some counties had coaching week last week when state schools had not yet broken up ffs. They have the best coaches and the best facilities. Cricket benefits massively from both whereas football is far easier for state schools.

Investment in state schools would be great but given the ecb lied about sharing matches at different grounds in franchises, why would anyone believe they will provide proper investment in schools?

I didn't say scrap the counties, but I don't see why we have to be wedded to counties being the only team format.

I'm not defending the ECB either, much of the game has too much self interest, too many have no experience of state schools or state education so just cannot relate to the issues they face. The promotion of the Hundred has been dreadful, didn't someone actually say "it isn't a competition for cricket fans" I mean, I know they're looking to attract new fans, but you don't say shit like that unless you're an idiot.

I'm just of the opinion that I like the idea of taking the counties out of being the only outlet for each format. I think it would be great to have professional exciting teams that exist outside the County squad structure, I don't think the idea of franchises in this country needs to be the death knell of the counties at all - it could enrich the game and there must be ways of seeing how this still benefits the counties and the larger game.

Wouldn't it be great if outside test cricket, the Counties were back to the pinnacle of a long format, potentially attracting more of the best players around the world to hone their skills. Instead of it being diluted by the County fixture list of various formats, it's just a list of special County Championship games, leaving the T20s, ODs to franchises, that could well be tied into the Counties anyway in terms of player development etc. etc.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

Wouldn't it be great if outside test cricket, the Counties were back to the pinnacle of a long format, potentially attracting more of the best players around the world to hone their skills. Instead of it being diluted by the County fixture list of various formats, it's just a list of special County Championship games, leaving the T20s, ODs to franchises, that could well be tied into the Counties anyway in terms of player development etc. etc.

The championship is never going to attract the best players in the way it did back in the 70s and 80s, there's too much competition from other T20 leagues around the world, aside from other international demands.

If the limited overs games and teams were entirely separate from the championship, then that either implies that they have to be played at entirely different times (guess which format would be played in the Peak summer weeks?), or the players would have to be constantly shifting between both formats and squads, which would lead to crap performances.

I've no problem at all with the counties just competing under the city name in T20 if it helps them appeal to a different audience, but having them separately owned and run rips the guts out of the existing structure without replacing it with anything for a large number of fans.

 

[um bongo molongo]

Sorry, I misunderstood, I hadn't realised that you were talking about the franchise system,



Speak for yourself. I am only interested in the four-day games (so are most of my friends). And test cricket certainly isn't dying a death - we get very good crowds for it . And we need the four-day game as preparation for five-day ones.

There are two problems with the franchise system. One, as Berty points out, is who is going to develop the players of the future? These elite players have all come through the county system and you need something to replicate it.

The second issue is that franchise work in areas where there's one big population centre but cricket in England isn't like that. Yorkshire contains Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Hull and Middlesbrough; Lancashire contains Liverpool and Manchester, Hampshire contains Southampton and Portsmouth etc. If you think that someone from Manchester will support a Liverpool team, I'm afraid that you know very little about local rivalry. But someone from Manchester will support a Lancashire team.

I'm not the slightest bit interested in the 100 because who's my team? The one near Crystal Palace or the one near Portsmouth. Even if the format were a good one, I have no affinity to either place.

The sparse crowds of a few old men at 4 day county cricket, and a few folks watching on a stream, would suggest you’re very much in a minority. I also don’t think a county system is a pre-requisite for player development. A pyramid system with regional sides at the top could serve the same purpose, arguably better, as the top level would be higher standard with the talent more concentrated, as the Aussie system shows. I think regional sides could work, but the trick they’re missing is for them to play at a few different grounds around the region. I think the rivalries will sort themselves out, as the one thing Scousers and Mancs share is a hatred of Southerners (and Londoners in particular). Trying to preserve the county system as it is is the King Canute approach.

 

[The Lemming Stomper]

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Isa and Vick