Ashes 2023

England will attempt to defend their 50 over World Cup with the nonsensical backdrop that very few decent players actually now play any domestic 50 over cricket at all. Because the domestic 50 over trophy played this month is now a virtual second eleven competition while all the better players are off playing in the Hundred.

It’s the equivalent of all football matches in England only lasting an hour and then us going to play internationals and wondering why we aren’t so good over 90 minutes!

 

I totally agree about the scheduling issues. I’m not such a “fuddy duddy cricket traditionalist”, so I don’t mind the razzmatazz the Hundred has and I think aligning with the women’s games was a good idea. However all those good marketing ploys could have been applied to the existing T20 tournament without introducing an extra one with the invention of silly new made-up rules which don’t really add anything.

 

I've been to a couple of Hundred games and the whole thing left me cold. As others have said, the made-up teams and neon pyjamas are fine. Having men's and women's games as a double-header is great. But messing with the format makes it hard to follow or care what's going on. All the usual reference points are gone. With overs, whether they're playing 20, 50 or a Test match, you know where you are. The run-rate makes sense, the number of wickets taken makes sense. You have a sense of the ebb and flow of an innings. Are they scoring well, or do they need to step it up? Have the bowlers got the upper hand? These are things you just 'feel', and if you don't, a quick glance at the scoreboard gives you a clear picture of how the game is going.

With the 100 it's just impossible to gauge. It's just a random hitting competition, see what you end up with and see if the other team can beat it. Cricket with all the finesse and nuance taken out of it. Like so many sports when they are reimagined for TV, it's like bubblegum for the brain. Once the taste has gone you're supposed to spit it out and chew a new bit. Instantly forgettable.

 

Rumours are that the Hundred will indeed be scrapped in the near future, at least as a format - and totally deserved too, from both an economic and sporting perspective, it's been a disaster. But I 100% agree with you that its the franchises that are the main problem, as nonsensical as the format is. Trying to impose a franchise model in a nation that already had a popular T20 tournament, played by long-established teams with loyal fanbases, was never going to work. The cricketing public is too discerning to obligingly whoop for whichever plastic, parasitic, crisp packet franchise they are told to. Who the hell are London Spirit, and why do they deserve my support?

It's all so unnecessary - all of the goals around participation, tv eyeballs etc could have been achieved simply by putting the T20 Blast on free to air tv and putting an ounce of marketing effort into it. But no, the only reason the entire tournament came into being was because Graves, Harrison and co sought to enrich themselves through the prospect of selling off the franchises to private investors. The fact that this now looks unlikely to happen provides a small crumb of comfort.

 

Test, 50 overs and 20 overs is fine. Don't downplay or neglect any of these. The 100 was a complete waste when, as others have said, they should have just pushed the 20/20 which has been a great evening competition. I don't think mixing the 100 with womens cricket works either. I'm sorry but the womens game is of such a poor standard compared to the mens game, it's like mixing it with an under 14s competition. Whoever dreamt up this whole 100 fiasco should be fired.

 

Has it actually been a fiasco though? I don't watch it and like you and others don't see the value in it. But it's got a decent TV deal and was supposed to provide revenue for the ECB to then share with the counties - has that not come to pass?

 

I’m not full of my own self-importance enough to begrudge people the pleasure of going to watch a Hundred match. It’s nice to see families doing so, although I know many places offer free tickets to boost attendances, and I find it annoying how unobjective the BBC and Sky’s coverage is. Constantly telling us how wonderful everything is, when quite often neither the match, the weather or the atmosphere at the ground isn’t.

However..

As others have rightly said, the Blast is a great product (haha speaking as a supporter of the current champions, I have to say this). Played in June when the weather is usually good and the daylight hours longest. A format played the world over. That’s what the ECB should have been investing in. And working harder to schedule it at a time where Stokes, Broad, Woakes, Duckett, Crawley and all could be available too.

Instead they create this nonsensical product that takes up all of August, relegating the 50 over trophy to a virtual second eleven competition, and meaning no Championship cricket for five weeks. If you live in Somerset, you have to travel to Cardiff to watch your nearest Hundred match, and once there you don’t see the great stars of world cricket but more often than not only players who’ve made a handful of appearances for the first-class counties.

The Ashes series proved to me that the best cricket imaginable is not one that’s contrived, artificial or fake. It’s the best players from two countries fighting in a tough way but in a good spirit too to the winning line. Watching Stokes bat or Broad bowl doesn’t need somebody to keep shouting out to us ‘omg isn’t this wonderful everybody?’ The cricket speaks for itself. That’s how to attract new supporters imo.

 

@UEA_Hornet The Hundred is actually losing money and a lot of the revenue the counties derive from it is actually compensation for the loss of their players. The county I support have lost 12 players this month plus our Head Coach

It is nice to see some cricket on free to watch tv though, I must concede and I will probably watch tonight’s opener.

 

Financially it may not have been.

 

We already had 20-20, so why we needed the 100 I do not know, as there is very little difference between the two competitions. I prefer one day and 20-20 myself and do not really follow the 100.

 

A friends son watched the Hundred and is now watching test cricket as well so I guess it works from that perspective. I just don't understand the need for it as well as 20/20. T bunch up The Ashes the way it's been done this year to put on a tournament that have made up teams just seems ridiculous. I have seen bits of The Hundred but as they mucked about with the laws I lost interest immediately. In cricket I'm a Yorkshire fan who basically have no cricket for a month! I won't be watching

 

Ben Stokes changing field placements every other ball is the biggest reason England got clobbered.

 

I've seen people say make the day longer. Just bowl 15 overs an hour or at the very least 14. Every day went on an extra half hour and still the overs were not completed. This point deduction should happen to everybody. Lets see if India and West Indies get clobbered. Their second test day 1, 84 overs, day 2, 85 overs. It was worse in the first test.
Need to do something different because it costs a lot to watch cricket and every day the fan loses out by 5-10 overs. Maybe at the end of each day, they work out on average how many overs were bowled per hour and if it's not 14+ they can only use 10 batsmen or an amount of extras are added to the batting teams total. Deducting World test points isn't working

 

I dunno, it could hardly be said that the cricket wasn't entertaining notwithstanding the slow over rate. Those sorts of penalties seem disproportionate to the problem to me, especially since it is not entirely the fault of the fielding side in any event.

Going on longer seems entirely sensible although it wouldn't work everywhere in the world.

 

I think there is an allowance made for acceptable reasons for the bowling side not bowling all the overs, such as a batsman changing his equipment, the umpires wanting to check the ball, groundsmen having to carry out some work on the pitch etc. However, England must have asked for the ball to be changed about 5 times per innings, so they really only have themselves to blame, especially as Stokes' regular minor adjustments to the field had a big impact as has already been said.

But I agree the deduction of points is not the best penalty; the imposition of 'penalty runs' during the game may concentrate minds more.

Another thing that bugs me (and Michael Holding when he still commentated) is the fact that the fielding side is immediately allowed a sub fielder to replace someone who's left the field for any reason, including having a 'comfort break'; or a bowler changing his shirt/having a rub-down etc after a spell; even clearly going off to get some tactical input from the analysts in the changing room. It would make teams think about all that if they were not allowed a sub fielder for 3 overs....after all, batsmen are no longer allowed 'runners' in Tests.

 

Nailed it .

 

And the preparation was chaotic…good idea to demotivate Brook by preferring a retired Stokes who has been useless when not injured…and not to even risk taking Roy despite his back issue…and to base the medium pace attack on 3 left armers and Woakes who doesn’t have the variety of delivery when his standard approach is getting clobbered…and too many bits & pieces spinners when it seemed obvious that on many pitches (not all) top level spin would be crucial in the middle overs.
Looks like the squad was picked for English conditions although it’s in India.
All exacerbated by the fact that few of the players have the 50 over experience required to understand when to go to T20 mode and when simply milk the bowling for singles.
Even worse, we will not qualify for the 2025 tournament (whatever it’s called) in Pakistan as we will not finish in the top 8 in this competition. The ignominy of HAVING to beat The Netherlands just to scrape into a world tournament by the skin of our teeth!

 

Captain Hindsight speaking here but , given the age of our team 4 years ago, we should have been ruthless and had a rebuild of the team then