The Hundred.. And One Reservation

According to reliable reports, those at Lords driving the seemingly unstoppable creation of The Hundred have authorised the spending of vast amounts on researching how to attract a new audience to the summer sport.

Presumably, alongside all the research that emboldened the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board Colin Graves to inform us that hardly any UK residents under the age of 80 actually like cricket at all, this work has told them, apparently, that there are about two million souls out there just waiting for the new format to come along so they can drop everything and pledge their undying commitment to it and all other forms of the game.

They may be right, though Virat Kohli for one, is far from sold on the idea, and one is tempted to ask where are these two million now and what have they been doing while all that other stuff has been happening? And not just boring old Test, ODI and County Championship cricket, but domestic white-ball cricket, including Twenty20s, too.

Clearly, the need for the ECB to get live cricket on free-to-air TV has been growing ever more acute since the same organisation made the decision back in 2005 to do the mega-deals with SKY TV which, while bringing in the booty, also switched off a generation so successfully that they are currently busting a collective blood vessel to come up with something, anything, with which to turn on the next one.

And the one logical reason for this version of 100-balls-per-side cricket played by eight as-yet unnamed “clubs” at Old Trafford, Headingley, Edgbaston, Trent Bridge, Sophia Gardens, Lord’s, The Oval and The Ageas Bowl, is that it will squeeze into the slot BBC Two have made available for the ten matches they have agreed to televise of the total number of 36 to be played.