GerryShedd
Super Moderator
I have no interest in The Hundred whatsoever and from a selfish point of view would love for it to disappear because of its effect on the competitions and the team that I do care about. But there is no doubt that it has found a market and achieved some of its aims.
The BBC reports today:
"The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced that 540,000 tickets were sold for this year's tournament, taking the total beyond two million over the first four years.
Of those, more than a million attended women's games and there were record crowds for women's matches at seven of the eight grounds used in The Hundred in 2024.
For all that the competition continues to split opinion, confirmation that 41% of tickets this year were sold to families and 30% to people new to cricket suggests it has been successful in its aim of bringing people to the sport.
Despite that, TV viewing figures were down on previous years. Although being up against the Olympics for two weeks in the middle of the tournament, perhaps that is to be expected - and the BBC's coverage of the men's final still attracted almost half a million more viewers than the 2023 final."
He has now signed a contract extension:
https://edgbaston.com/news/che-simmons-signs-warwickshire-contract-extension/
Well, I enjoyed my day in the Welsh sunshine but a very disappointing performance and result.
I agree about the death bowling.
As for the batting, it wasn't just that the top order failed but that they took a long time to do so. Between them, Will Rhodes, Hamza Shaikh, Chris Benjamin and Kai Smith scored 20 runs in 69 balls. In the normal course of events, you might have expected that one or more of them would have gone on from a slow start, speeded up and made a big score. On this occasion, it didn't happen and left Burgess and the lower middle order with a massive mountain to climb.
Anyway, there were positives from the competition, the Kai Smith innings being the most memorable.
Averages are here:
https://www.espncricinfo.com/records/tournament/averages-batting-bowling-by-team/one-day-cup-2024-16023?team=1479
Graham Smith previews the semis here:
https://deepextracover.com/2024/08/metro-bank-one-day-cup-semi-final-previews/
A star is born!
Hamza Shaikh 91 v Sri Lanka today.
Winners play Glamorgan at Sophia Gardens on Sunday.
If Glamorgan win, they’ll be dancing in the streets of Splott.
There used to be two “evening” papers on sale all day - the Mail and the Despatch. Buying the latest edition and looking in the Stop Press column was the way to find all the latest scores, the equivalent of logging into Cricinfo on your phone.
The two papers eventually merged.
Yes, confirmed by Worcestershire- match to be played at Edgbaston on Friday.
I was saddened to hear of his death last week; but made even sadder by finding out that he took his own life when he was struck by a train.
Graham Smith sets out the permutations for qualification:
https://deepextracover.com/2024/08/metro-bank-one-day-cup-one-round-to-go/
Exiled Bear - it's all very well you applying common sense and a bit of imagination to the problem, so long as you don't expect the ECB to do the same.
Yes, can only concur with what others have said - and wish him well for the future.
It becomes increasingly important to finish top of the Group and thus avoid having to play a quarter final.
Rob Yates and Hamza Shaikh are in the squad for the match against Sri Lanka starting next Wednesday so won't be available for the match against Notts in the One Day Cup - but Notts also have two players in the squad.
https://www.ecb.co.uk/news/4078900/england-lions-name-squad-for-sri-lanka-tour-game
The Cricketer reports that counties met recently to discuss the future of live streaming. It reports:
"One of the takeaways from the meeting of the counties – attended by the majority, but not all – with general consensus that it isn't feasible, at a time where finances are limited at several counties, to not be trying to make money from a summer-long streaming service that can essentially operate as a digital season ticket. That is particularly the case where the product is a bells-and-whistles, multi-camera operation, often expensive to run and, in some situations, good enough to be carried by Sky Sports.
While the monetisation of streams is seen as a necessary inevitability in the not-too-distant future, in whatever form that takes, some counties feel more comfortable than others about the use of a paywall because of the money that has gone into production values. At other grounds, where the crux of the coverage might be little more than a couple of static cameras, that might not be the case.
There are also those who are reluctant to put their product behind a paywall for the reason that keeping their product free to view acts as a marketing tool to encourage in-person attendance at matches and retains a connection between fans and the team, while paywalling also brings questions around the use of match-clips on social media."
As the rain was coming down today, I was trying to weigh up the season so far - excellent results in two competitions but very disappointing results in the Championship.
How are we doing compared with other counties? Are there any counties doing well in all three competitions? By “doing well”, I mean having got through to the quarter finals of the Blast and being in the top half of their table in the One Day Cup and in the Championship.
The simple answer is that there is only one county out of 18 that, by the definitions above, is doing well. You can forget Surrey who are having a disastrous One Day Cup campaign. Lancashire are struggling in both the Championship and the One Day Cup; and counties of the calibre of Notts, Essex and Hampshire didn’t make it to the Blast quarters.
So we are left with Somerset, only third in their Blast group but still through to the knockout stages to defend their title and currently top (level on points with three others) in the One Day Cup and second in the Championship. The other 17 counties, including the Bears, can at best boast two out of three successes.
I accept that, for most of us, success in the Championship would count for more than in the other competitions; and that's the one where the Bears have fallen short. But taken overall, it's not such a bad picture. In fact, across all competitions, Somerset have won 15 games, exactly the same as the Bears.
By the end of the season, success or failure will be much easier to judge with titles won or lost and relegation avoided or not. But, as at today, things don't look all that bad (says Mr Glass Half Full).
Five out of five for both teams.
Graham Smith reviews here and doesn't show his Glamorgan loyalties too strongly:
https://deepextracover.com/2024/08/metro-bank-one-day-cup-group-b-match-preview-warwickshire-v-glamorgan/