48-Hours in Cricket Custody

After months of waiting, debating, and gesticulating, The Hundred finally got underway this week with an Oval Invincibles versus Manchester Originals double-header (albeit on consecutive nights) at the Kia Oval; and Oval did indeed prove to be invincible, as women’s captain Dane van Niekerk struck an unbeaten 56 to lead her side to victory on Wednesday, before counterpart Sam Billings struck 49 off 30-balls to help the men’s side set a winning total of 145 just 24-hours later.

Truthfully, no-one seems to really know what a good total is in The Hundred right now; approximate T20 comparisons were made, the Kia Oval’s pitch and outfield tendencies were considered, and more general thoughts, such as ‘well they lost early wickets, which always hurts’, were factored in. But no-one could be sure whether the Manchester women’s 139, or Oval men’s 145, would be high enough totals to win; and that might well include the teams themselves, who are learning on the job just as much as we viewers are in some respects.

Ultimately the cricket was, well, cricket. It was fine. Good even. Manchester captain Kate Cross hit the first six in Hundred history, then came close to taking a hat-trick during the Oval innings in what was a tense and exciting opening to the competition; the men’s opener felt slightly more clunky, as wickets fell with moderate regularity and batters struggled to build momentum – but that feels very much like an accusation you could lay at the door of any number of limited overs games. It is not unique to The Hundred.

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It remains to be seen whether the format will catch on globally, but in its infancy it’s…fine. As an existing fan, some moderate rewiring was required for the opening game, breaking the habit of ‘overs’ in order to think in blocks of 5 or 10. But otherwise it’s largely the same, and even as someone that remains unsure of the Hundred’s place in English cricket, the countdown element did add something to proceedings it has to be said. It’s still essentially cricket as we know it, just more metric – there’s really nothing wrong with the actual on-field play though, and any protests to the contrary, claiming ‘it’s not real cricket’ are basically bollocks.

The presentation remains a point of debate however – perhaps that was always likely in year one of a new competition. The odd slip of the tongue from commentators, still using the term ‘overs’ out of well worn habits from other formats, can be forgiven, but we won’t know for sometimes whether the introduction of personalities from Radio 1 and Love Island are having the desired effect. If you don’t like them, and you’re over the age of about 25 (perhaps even younger), maybe just accept their presence isn’t with you in mind, but for a younger audience that might be looking for some other hook. Again, we won’t know whether it’s worked for a while – the same could be said of the musical interludes between innings – but a peak audience of 1.6 million on BBC Two for Wednesday’s women’s game at least suggests people are willing to give things a chance at this stage.

On a positive note, it does appear those in charge of the competition – or at least its public face – are learning. The on-screen layout improved between the women’s game, which had slightly larger columns on either side of the screen to indicate the totals (runs, wickets, balls), and men’s, which saw the column height reduced greatly. The new layout is still not for everyone (and the flashing ‘six’ ‘[result]’ graphics are….something) but tinkering with the graphical overlay is a never ending cycle of tinkering and tweaking at the best of times.

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Personally, I’m still struggling with the new team names – perhaps it’s because I’m not a Londoner that I find ‘Oval’ odd as a team identity. I probably shouldn’t, is it really any different to Arsenal in football? But here we are. It’s still less egregious to me than, say, Welsh Fire, but, having sat and watched the opening two games of the tournament, I’m unsure if this personal grumble matters. Just because I don’t have a horse in the race, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. And, frankly, I did. It was fun to watch cricket on terrestrial TV, and I admit it has made me reconsider a Sky Sports subscription again – doubtless someone at the ECB will argue that that was part of the master plan all along. And in turn I would have to say ‘well, fair enough; you got me’.

Perhaps that’s the biggest plus of all here – regardless of format, participants, teams, or colour schemes, there is cricket back on terrestrial TV; and perhaps promising figures from these early games will encourage the BBC to re-think their scheduling and show more games live on BBC Two now.

This isn’t to say the clouds have been blown away – concerns over The Hundred’s impact on the wider domestic game remain, and, despite my enjoyment of Wednesday and Thursdays games, there’s still this nagging feeling that a new competition wasn’t really necessary to achieve these goals. But here we are. I can’t say I’m a convert per se, but equally I enjoyed what I saw. It’s almost like you can both enjoy watching The Hundred, because it’s (good) cricket, but worry about the wider sport still, and whether this new competition can solve those ills. That’s what being human is sometimes, holding two opinions which might slightly conflict with each other.

Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to think about that during the innings break on Friday.