[Cricket] The Hundred

[Bodian]

Somewhat unfair comparison to compare a Tuesday night domestic game with a final day of an Ashes series with England pushing for a win. A bit like saying the home crowd at the Amex is shite during a home league cup tie against Cheltenham Town because they’d produce more noise if we’d just scored a last minute winner in a cup final against Palace at Wembley.

Okay - lazy comparison maybe. But it was like it for much of every day of the whole series.

 

[Pevenseagull]

So as someone who enjoys watching The Hundred does that make me someone who “doesn’t actually like cricket”?

Jesus wept.

I'll get back to you.

I'm delighted to hear that you enjoy the hundred.

I look forward to getting along to the one day of Sussex men's first XI cricket held in Sussex on a weekend this month. Hopefully one or more of the other 3 days of play .... August.

 

[Sheebo]

I really feel the hundred is unfair on Doritos. There, I said it.

 

[crodonilson]

And yet The Hundred is the ECBs idea and they’re the ones pushing it heavily.

And the players and ex players who all seem to love it. Simon 'Doully' Doull said it was the highlight of the sporting summer. Nick Knight thinks it's a fascinating watch, Nasser loves it.

On the audiences, over 15,000 there last night, it's not as raucous as a test match but they are trying to drive the laddish and loutish behaviour that plagued the Ashes out of the game and create a true family friendly and inclusive atmosphere.

 

[Jim in the West]

I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with 20/20. Why do we need to reserve the whole of August for The Hundred? For me the whole problem is that The Hundred involves manufactured teams with which I can have no affinity.
It’s like the FA side-lining the FA cup and creating new teams and a new competition, and running it at the height of the season, with the Premier League suspended for a month. We’d have to support “South Coast All Stars”, with a mix of players from BHA, Southampton and Portsmouth. With all home matches played in Southampton.
The football might be good, but it would be meaningless.

 

[Berty23]

I said you don't need Somerset and Gloucestershire - you can imagine one team splitting its time between Bristol & Taunton and in doing so covering the south west.

As for Essex, recent success in the county championship means nothing in the grand scheme of things. The re-organisation I am proposing is centred centre around how many 20000+ seater cricket stadia can be regularly filled - Essex would play no part in that as anyone in that area can easily travel to the oval &/or lords.

Besides, the fact you're quibbling around the edges of my point suggests you agree with the thrust of it. Pissing money up the wall having 3x first class counties in Leicester, Derby & Nottingham is not the right way to be doing things.

I don't disagree with you 'tradition' and intra-county politics will stop these changes happening but that isn't going to be a good thing for the sport in this country in the long-run.

Somerset sold out every t20 blast match. They have thousands of members for the county championship. They get some of the best attendances in the country. For the last 15 years they have been one of the best counties. To merge with another because you feel they don’t need to both exist is staggering.

Somerset also produce a remarkable amount of England players and have a side consisting of many academy graduates.

I often hear that we have too many first class sides but then if we did not have as many then so many potential England players would be missed as they would not get the chance to show what they can do. Who is topping the run scoring charts in division one this season? A kid from Somerset who is a keeper batsman.

 

[Berty23]

And the players and ex players who all seem to love it. Simon 'Doully' Doull said it was the highlight of the sporting summer. Nick Knight thinks it's a fascinating watch, Nasser loves it.

On the audiences, over 15,000 there last night, it's not as raucous as a test match but they are trying to drive the laddish and loutish behaviour that plagued the Ashes out of the game and create a true family friendly and inclusive atmosphere.

There were 12k there. Not 15. And loads of them got free tickets in the most marketed cricket tournament.

Doull spent the whole of the blast saying it was the peak of the season and all the players loved it. He talked about how the atmosphere at Taunton was incredible. I suspect he says what he is paid to say.

 

[Husty]

Somerset sold out every t20 blast match. They have thousands of members for the county championship. They get some of the best attendances in the country. For the last 15 years they have been one of the best counties. To merge with another because you feel they don’t need to both exist is staggering.

Somerset also produce a remarkable amount of England players and have a side consisting of many academy graduates.

I often hear that we have too many first class sides but then if we did not have as many then so many potential England players would be missed as they would not get the chance to show what they can do. Who is topping the run scoring charts in division one this season? A kid from Somerset who is a keeper batsman.

Someone else skirting around the edges of my point by quibbling about one specific county. I identified 8 that can go. I will take you agree with me on the rest.

 

[Gazwag]

Ditch the tonne of shit.

Keep the 20/20 but start the 20/20 half an hour earlier and penalise slow play. Structure the regional groups so you can have 4 fixtures a week. Wednesday evening Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday afternoons, 1 evening match and one day time game at home each week. Get it all out of the way between the middle of July to middle of August.

none of this bollocks where centrally contracted test cricketers are obliged to turn out for short form cricket and have test cricket and county cricket played at the same time with county championship games at out grounds e.g Horsham, Eastbourne, Arundel.

More people can get to the games, it's all done and dusted in a timely fashion.

and there's proper cricket for people who actually like cricket and don't think that a good evening out requires waggling a big foam hand and singing along (badly) to 'Sweet f***ing Caroline' being blasted over a tanoy every 5 f***ing minutes.

f*** the ECB.

****s

Totally agree getting long and short versions out so the rest of Sussex, obviously Hastings has gone but was great to get to the old 40 over and championship matches at Eastbourne and Hastings for those in East Sussex. No reason why the odd day time weekend 20/20 matches cant be played at smaller grounds is there? East Sussex/West Sussex is such a long "country"

 

[Berty23]

Someone else skirting around the edges of my point by quibbling about one specific county. I identified 8 that can go. I will take you agree with me on the rest.

Essex have been a major force for years. Sussex won several championships only about 15 years ago. Durham won a few.

Somerset have been arguably the most consistent white ball team for the last decade. In fact somerset and Essex probably the best champo teams over last 5 or 6 years.
Who was England’s top scorer in the ashes? Crawley from Kent who got us off to decent starts with Duckett who came through Northants before moeen Ali came in who was not getting enough games at warks so went to Worcs and made his name. Sad to see a lad who broke into professional cricket at leics retire.

It is a Shame that Somerset’s leach could not play all series as he is our best spin bowler since Swann who came through Northants and yes I do class Leach as better than Northants Monty or Somerset’s Dom Bess.

I massively enjoyed the leadership from Durham’s Ben Stokes who follows his county mate Colly who was our first winner of ICC white ball trophy.

I still think there is a way to get Englands best ever white ball batsman from Somerset into the test side but I disagree with the calls that Essex legend and England record run scorer cook should be in the side.

 

[Pavilionaire]

It's interesting that there are many who wish to see the 50 over game binned off, and yet scoring rate is faster than England's Bazball cricket people are raving about, you get a full day's cricket and a result at the end.

Arguably, if every test side adopted Bazball then - in time - the powers that be will see the attraction in replacing a test with a 5 Match Series of 50 over per side matches, you'd then get more tickets sold (as guaranteed cricket on Day 5), so more money to be made.

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

Watched it last night for the very first time.

The TV graphics, kits and overall presentation are horrendous. Very hard for a new viewer to know what the hell is going on. My favourite moment was a rocket going off and scaring the living shit out of a kid and his Dad.


That being said, the ending was quite entertaining.

 

[crodonilson]

It's interesting that there are many who wish to see the 50 over game binned off, and yet scoring rate is faster than England's Bazball cricket people are raving about, you get a full day's cricket and a result at the end.

Arguably, if every test side adopted Bazball then - in time - the powers that be will see the attraction in replacing a test with a 5 Match Series of 50 over per side matches, you'd then get more tickets sold (as guaranteed cricket on Day 5), so more money to be made.

India lobbied for this a while ago if I recall, they absolutely f***ing love ODI's. So they wanted to change each test match at each venue as 5 single back to back one day games and the winner of this group of games would earn the 'test' win, then onto the next venue for the same so in effect a 5 test match series could be as many as 25 one day games to decide the series winner.

 

[The Lemming Stomper]

The haters must be self combusting with the rain affected match being the 40 !

A few ex-Sussex plying their trade

 

[Bodian]

The TV graphics,

I struggled to work out if they were showing a replay of the previous ball, or the next ball....

 

[crodonilson]

Tonight's game should be a good watch with local bragging rights at stake between the two London clubs. Nick Knight described it as the biggest night in the domestic cricket calendar.

 

[Berty23]

Tonight's game should be a good watch with local bragging rights at stake between the two London clubs. Nick Knight described it as the biggest night in the domestic cricket calendar.

I was flicking through the channels and saw lords half full. Don’t Surrey and Middlesex either sell out or get close to selling out that fixture? I just checked. It used to be a sell out but this season was half full. Well played ECB.

 

[crodonilson]

I was flicking through the channels and saw lords half full. Don’t Surrey and Middlesex either sell out or get close to selling out that fixture? I just checked. It used to be a sell out but this season was half full. Well played ECB.

Big Nass seemed to think plenty had bought tickets but not turned up because of the horrendous forecast, he was encouraging them to get down there as looks like we will get a full game in. Nice to watch this one as a neutral and just enjoy the cricket but you can tell there is no love lost between these two.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

I'm sat here watching London smashers versus London Smashers. The screen looks like a packet of chewitts and it's making me fancy a bag of crisps.

I'm gonna walk the dog.

 

[Eeyore]

Someone else skirting around the edges of my point by quibbling about one specific county. I identified 8 that can go. I will take you agree with me on the rest.

I get your point, but why wouldn't Sussex be one to go in your list ? If the numbers came down to ten, Sussex has no real case to be one of them with Hampshire and Surrey as their neighbours.