Just had an email from Edgbaston telling me the Hundread first game has sold out!! I find it hard to believe that 25000 tickets have been sold in advance of this game.
Just had an email from Edgbaston telling me the Hundread first game has sold out!! I find it hard to believe that 25000 tickets have been sold in advance of this game.
I know weather not good but grounds don’t seem that full and not much of a push to me to sell tickets
What’s going on?
Similar to what the blast found out pretty quickly.
More people have flown abroad this summer than did in 2022 and especially 2021. Particularly after the rotten July and mixed forcast for the rest of summer people have jetted off - amongst other factors. Central London was quiet on Monday, Brum seemed pretty quiet this afternoon
2021 had the novelty factor and was pretty much the first thing people were able to go and watch after being set free and allowed outside after the various Covid waves
The thing is haemorrhaging money and a realignment of the Blast/Hundred will take place from 2025 and not even the Sky deal that runs to 2028 is likely to prevent the ECB making the changes that are required to keep all 18 stakeholders happy. You just can't have the situation where Worcestershire only have 4 days cricket to offer their supporters in the entirity of August
People behind the scenes have had enough of das blundred despite all the positive spin. Even the participants know there is not long left for this format from conversations I've been privy to. What follows it has to satisfy all 18 counties
Mad states what follows the hundread has to satisfy all 18 counties. Well what satisfies all 18 counties already exists - the Blast. The season just needs contructing in a better way so that CC is played throughout the summer alongside the T20. Also the 50 over competition needs to appear more meaningful.
Crowds at the Hundread must contain a lot of free tickets IMO
Interesting that the marketing "genius" was interviewed ahead of the Hundred yesterday.
He accidentally said "final" year of the Hundred and then corrected himself to "third" year.
Watched 5 mins and the crowd attendance doesn't look impressive.
Haven't watched any of it.
I did watch a couple of games in the first season a women's game first week and the men's final on a laptop a few weeks later. Looked and sounded terrible. Last year all I saw were a few video clips on twitter. This year so far I've avoided even that. I'm treating it a bit like 'whamageddon' in December when you try for as long as possible not to hear that damn song each Xmas. I almost made it to Xmas Eve last year
I thought the whole point of the hundred format was that T20 was too long for fans (non cricket fans that is)
Games are lasting as long if not longer. Another BS reason given for this tournament.
One idea I saw on twitter that could be adapted.
2 division Blast
2 up 2 down each season
Women's franchise team stays with their host county at the test match ground whichever division they are in as there aren't yet enough women of sufficient quality to fill more than 8 or 9 sides (or so we keep being told)
They can then continue to have double headers at the test match venues whether the men's side is in division one or division two it won't matter
E.g. Birmingham Phoenix v Manchester Originals women's hundred or T20 backed by Warwickshire Bears v Northants Sticklebacks Blast Div 2 match
The women's franchise side can if they so wish request a move to a boutique county ground venue such as Taunton or Chelmsford if the players/coaches of that side think it'd benefit that team
Separate finals day for men and women
1 team from Div 2 + 3 teams from Div 1 qualify for men's finals day
2 division Blast is so clearly the best idea. Home and away fixtures, each team plays each other twice, 16 games. Can market the top division as the English Premier League or whatever. Wouldn't even need to have Finals Day and knockouts, the team who wins the EPL will be the best side and will be worthy winners. Play it throughout the duration of the season with games on Fridays and/or Sundays only, each game would be a proper event. Everyone knows where they are and what the craic is. Can even have a Gillette Soccer Saturday style show on TV that provides updates from each ground. The relegation/promotion element would be huge. It really would capture the imagination.
Andy wrote:
2 division Blast is so clearly the best idea. Home and away fixtures, each team plays each other twice, 16 games. Can market the top division as the English Premier League or whatever. Wouldn't even need to have Finals Day and knockouts, the team who wins the EPL will be the best side and will be worthy winners. Play it throughout the duration of the season with games on Fridays and/or Sundays only, each game would be a proper event. Everyone knows where they are and what the craic is. Can even have a Gillette Soccer Saturday style show on TV that provides updates from each ground. The relegation/promotion element would be huge. It really would capture the imagination.
Why would you want to do away with Finals Day? The one day when Edgbaston is full for a domestic game with a tremendous atmosphere.
It would make sense to have a reserve day for every game too.
Shame another washout of hundred cricket...ahh well !
Switching onto sky and listening to them try and justify how 4 formats of cricket can co-exist and how everyone has something they can pick and enjoy.. of course it's complete and utter bias and I'm sure people can see through it
Will be interesting to hear the likes of Robert Croft and Charlie Dagnall change their tune if the hundred is scrapped next season for a revised T20 competition
LeicesterExile wrote:
Andy wrote:
2 division Blast is so clearly the best idea. Home and away fixtures, each team plays each other twice, 16 games. Can market the top division as the English Premier League or whatever. Wouldn't even need to have Finals Day and knockouts, the team who wins the EPL will be the best side and will be worthy winners. Play it throughout the duration of the season with games on Fridays and/or Sundays only, each game would be a proper event. Everyone knows where they are and what the craic is. Can even have a Gillette Soccer Saturday style show on TV that provides updates from each ground. The relegation/promotion element would be huge. It really would capture the imagination.
Why would you want to do away with Finals Day? The one day when Edgbaston is full for a domestic game with a tremendous atmosphere.
It would make sense to have a reserve day for every game too.
You could have a finals/relegation/promotion day with a 2 league t20 format
Relegation/promotion decider
8th team div 1 v 2nd team div 2
Finals play off
2nd team div 1 v 3rd team div 1
Finals match
1st Team Div 1 v Finals play off winner
Just a suggestion. Plenty of others I'm sure
Never been keen on finals day, 120 overs on the same pitch all on 1 day always feels a bit excessive to me. It's such a long day. Never been keen on teams scraping 4th in the group and shithousing their way to the title either. Felt weird in 2014 when we did it. Just doesn't sit right with me. I feel it can be incredibly demanding from a logistical perspective for some travelling fans too, particularly those from down south.
I appreciate and respect its popularity though.
A day of 8th in div1 v 2nd in div2 and 1st v 2nd of Div 1, just 2 games in one day might be OK.
I'd ideally want the winner of the top division to be the winner of the Blast outright though.
ajones1328 wrote:
Shame another washout of hundred cricket...ahh well !
Switching onto sky and listening to them try and justify how 4 formats of cricket can co-exist and how everyone has something they can pick and enjoy.. of course it's complete and utter bias and I'm sure people can see through it
Will be interesting to hear the likes of Robert Croft and Charlie Dagnall change their tune if the hundred is scrapped next season for a revised T20 competition
Dagnall, nice man though he is, will say/do whatever he can just to try and relevant. He tries very hard. Surely he, and the others, dont actually believe the sort of stuff they come out with regarding the Hundred.
These washouts aren't doing much for the survival of the Hundread. BBC2 are showing a programme about coastal walks instead.
You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh wouldn't you?! Hundred crowds this year are experiencing what us "proper" cricket fans are forced to endure during our CC windows in April, May and September. Cold, rain, wind and curtailed play. Re: Charlie Dagnall and his fellow hyperventilating commentators - they're making a very nice living themselves freelancing their wares around the franchises so hardly surprising that they extoll this competition's virtues at every opportunity.
Andy wrote:
Never been keen on finals day, 120 overs on the same pitch all on 1 day always feels a bit excessive to me. It's such a long day. Never been keen on teams scraping 4th in the group and shithousing their way to the title either. Felt weird in 2014 when we did it. Just doesn't sit right with me. I feel it can be incredibly demanding from a logistical perspective for some travelling fans too, particularly those from down south.
I appreciate and respect its popularity though.
A day of 8th in div1 v 2nd in div2 and 1st v 2nd of Div 1, just 2 games in one day might be OK.
I'd ideally want the winner of the top division to be the winner of the Blast outright though.
It works very well in Rugby where the top teams have a play off to see which team is overall winner and can easily be the team that finished 4th in the league. It's the same in football with the playoff to see who gets promoted. What has been suggested here is the teams that finish top in their respective division go automatically to Finals Day.
As for your comment about the same pitch being used throughout the day - 120 overs maximum is surely not excessive as that used to be the norm back last century for CC games.
Having been to all the Edgbaston and Trent Bridge finals day up to the year we won it (so most times as a neutral!) I found it a most enjoyable day out. Long may it continue IMO
Totally understand that it's popular and people enjoy it hugely. However just because it happens in Rugby and Football doesn't automatically make it good or fair. And just because they used to have 120 overs a day for the County Championship many decades ago doesn't mean it should be happening today for an entirely different format. They went away from that for good reason.
I'm not necessarily suggesting they do away with some sort of Finals Day entirely anyway, a promotion/relegation play off scenario might be intriguing. I'd still rather see the top 2 up and the bottom 2 down after a culmination of 16 games though.
To have a 2 division, 2 up 2 down league format and then a Finals Day to decide the outright winner at the end would be odd though as teams will have already played each other twice (home and away) then would have the prospect of having to play, and possibly be required to beat, some sides for a THIRD time at Finals Day. It would lose the potential of having an exciting title race and all the twist and turns that brings over a sustained period too.
Think they'd be mad to get rid of or tinker too much with finals day. Likelihood is it'll be September again rather than June from 2025
Has to be the number one day of domestic and/or white ball cricket in the English season
Nothing the new unwanted format has thrown together comes close. I'd be loathe to lose that however I'd love a proper league played once per week next to the county championship like the old days of the Sunday league (doesn't have to be on Sundays) so you could announce a white ball League Champion maybe from combining seven 50 over games and ten T20 games and then use the T20 games to arrange 4 counties to contest finals day and use the 50-over games to determine two sides to contest the Lord's 50-over final
The Hundred is simply not fit for purpose and should be dispensed with immediately