Should The One Day Cup Endure?

One of the few unifying feelings in English cricket right now is that four competitions is unsustainable. It puts too much pressure on the schedule, relies too much on the weather, and pins too many hopes on April and September being conducive to producing Test cricketers. Some of these issues existed even before The Hundred arrived, but now it’s here, the full, brutal realities of trying to fit all the cricket we/the ECB want to play into six months are there for all to see.

Many would still solve this riddle by ditching the much maligned new competition, but let’s speak plainly here – The Hundred is not going away. Too much money has been invested in it, both by the ECB, and by partners and sponsors that have come on board, and will doubtless be courted for even greater sums of money when the various agreements come up for renewal. It has also provided a huge boost to the women’s game, something which should not be sniffed at here. Love it or loathe it, The Hundred is here to stay; or at least, the pragmatic approach would be to treat it as such.

That leaves us with the three ‘traditional’ competitions – the County Championship, the T20 Blast, and the One Day Cup.

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.

Yes, We Know You ‘Don’t Care’

A year later than planned, The Hundred begins on Wednesday, when Oval Invincibles Women take on Manchester Originals Women at the Kia Oval; their male counterparts then kick off the men’s tournament 24-hours later. For some, it is an eagerly anticipated event. For others, the equivalent of a demon being born before our very eyes – albeit they won’t be watching, something they’ll be quick to remind you of.

It was inevitable that promotion of The Hundred would be cranked up immediately prior to the tournaments actually getting underway; sadly it feels equally inevitable this additional promotion has been accompanied by a deluge of ‘don’t care’ style replies, from those opposed to the new tournament.

You Couldn’t Make It Up

The Hundred is coming. No matter the resistance, no matter the concern, it’s coming.

The ECB hopes The Hundred will reinvigorate the sport in England and Wales – either in cynical terms, by boosting the bottom line, or by the more optimistic measure of boosting interest and participation.

It’s unclear whether it can achieve either of these goals long term. Whether it really will simplify anything. Whether it will engage with the demographics being targeted. Or whether the schism between English cricket’s core fanbase and its administrators can ever be fixed, following months of poor PR and repeated butting of heads.

The trouble is, no amount of shiny packaging can change one fundamental aspect of cricket, of sport – you cannot manufacture the kind of crowd pleasing drama we have seen this summer.

Does The Hundred Simplify Anything?

One of the aims of The Hundred, we are told, is to ‘simplify’ cricket – to open the game up to those left bewildered by the mere mention of a googly, or confused by what fielding at silly mid-off means.

It’s a laudable aim. Cricket is indeed a strange beast to the uninitiated, something I can attest to having recently tried to explain the sport to a Russian colleague – but can The Hundred actually simplify the game?