The last few weeks could easily be mistaken for an average BBC2 comedy. The cricket season starts just a week after heavy blizzards across the country, Peter Siddle takes a wicket wearing a woolly hat, and the ECB announce a new 100 ball format to ‘shake up cricket’. I can imagine it now. Kris Marshall plays the bumbling ECB executive, and there’s a load of poor innuendos about stumps.
It’s almost like The Thick of It. The intern pitches the idea of a 10-ball final over, and suddenly it’s being announced to the nation. For years now, a new competition was always in the offing to try to rival the IPL or the Big Bash. Sure, we have our T20 blast, but a shorter inter-city format was needed. Then came the announcement from the ECB. A new eight-team city tournament was on its way from 2020, but rather than T20, there will be 100 balls per innings.
With the working title ‘The Hundred’, it’s an attempt to appeal to the masses. The competition will offer faster matches, start slightly earlier, and allow kids to get home at a reasonable hour. There will be 15 traditional six-ball overs and a single 10-ball over to complete each innings. A women’s event, run along the same lines, will also be launched. To increase viewership, the BBC will also have shared coverage, allowing those without Sky TV to get involved in the action too.
After the announcement, social media was up in arms. I mean yeah, on the face of it, it all does sound rather stupid. But could this work? Could it revolutionise the game? Eoin Morgan certainly thinks so. He’s warned that unless English cricket is prepared to accept change, the sport may die out. Participation levels have fallen steadily over the past decade, and it’s ‘boring’ reputation needs quick fixing. I’m a traditionalist myself; test cricket is the ultimate for me, but I understand that sport today demands quicker, more exciting formats.
So, let’s look at the positives.
More exposure for the game. A new faster tournament on terrestrial TV will introduce a whole new audience to the game and will finally give the Women’s game the attention it deserves in the same way the Ladies Big Bash has down under. It’s slightly different. The ECB has combined the winning features of rival competitions such as the IPL along with the twist of a slightly different format. If a game comes down to those final 10 balls, there is potential to make those final 5-10 minutes thrilling, tense, and a spectacle for those watching.
Unfortunately, English cricket’s issues run deeper than the shorter formats of the game. This was highlighted just a couple of week’s ago, as the season kicked off in mid-April to freezing conditions. The English seasons runs all the way to the end of September, a whole month after the local seasons finish across the country. The season is far too long, and it’s the cricket that suffers. During the first round of fixtures this year, 9 of 16 innings were all out for under 200, in the 2nd week there were 11 more scores under 200, and so far, there has only been one drawn 4-day game. How are selectors manage to accurately gauge player performance from this?
The problem is there is just far too much cricket. Would ‘The Hundred’ solve that? Not with how the ECB want to implement it. If this were a direct replacement for T20, it could do, but currently, both formats are set to be in place after 2020. The English cricket season already has a bloated 4-day format comprising of 16 games, a one-day competition, and a T20 blast which has its own secluded period, usually in July. Adding in a 5-week 100 ball competition, and suddenly there are no breaks.
Compare this to other countries, and you can see how England are mismanaging their schedules. In Australia, they have the Sheffield Shield which has 6 fewer games than the County Championship, a one-day competition, and the separated inter-city Big Bash. In India, their first class competition ‘The Ranji’, is just 8-9 games plus a knockout stage, as well as an interstate T20 alongside the IPL, and a short one-day competition with just 6 group games. Both South Africa and New Zealand’s 3 formats all have just 6 teams, and Bangladesh’s first-class cricket is split into pools of 4.
In International Cricket, the schedules are also flawed. Over an 18-month period from March 2017 to October 2018, England will play 21 tests, New Zealand just the 4. Over the same period, the Kiwis will play over 20 short format games (T20s/ODIs), but England will also easily match that. This is all part of a continuing shift towards the shorter forms of the game, as test cricket fades into obscurity. For the first time, we are now seeing players leave the longer formats alone to focus on white ball cricket, Alex Hales and Adil Rashid being examples. Tournaments like the IPL and the Big Bash are where the money, sponsors, and exposure are, and many are seeing it as the only way to further their careers.
International players also tend to stay away from their counties due to the overscheduling. England players only turn up for their counties if they’re out of form or dropped, and as Darren Gough explains, it’s almost as if they are above it. Because of the lack of talent in the longer formats, England’s test team is struggling. Over the winter James Vince and Mason Crane found themselves selected for the test team, Vince was only averaging 30 with the bat last summer, and Crane, 45, with the ball.
So where does English cricket, and the game go from here? Firstly, the ECB needs to fix and reform the County Championship, which in turn will fix the scheduling. Reducing the 4-day game to 10 fixtures a year and scrapping the T20 Blast in favour of ‘The Hundred’ will decrease the season’s length and increase the quality on show. Having fewer competitions with more exposure might also attract the bigger English players to play more for their counties.
It’s also important to remember that revolution doesn’t just have to be in the shorter forms of the game. Innovating the four-day game is also necessary, and the ECB should look abroad for ideas. Having a knockout stage like India’s Ranji competition is one and allowing two or three overseas players instead of just the one is another.
Changes are also needed in the International game. Ideas for a Test competition that spans several years is already in the pipeline, and the same could easily be used for the shorter formats of the game. Having the tournament run over 4 years, with each team playing the same number of games home and away could be easily introduced, but what would it mean for the spectacles such as the Ashes?
The next few years is vital for the game of cricket if it hopes to increase participation and compete against growing sports in the UK such as tennis, basketball, and American football. 2020 is not long away, but the ECB needs to ensure the game is transformed before ‘The Hundred’ emerges, otherwise the rollout could be a complete mess. Test cricket needs reforming to fix the lack of interest, and most of all, the players just need a break.
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