Had no interest in cricket until The Hundred come along, now every Monday night is multiple County Championship livestreams. The Hundred is such a great way to get people into cricket — take your kids this summer!
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There are bits about the Hundred format (not least the franchise structure) that I dislike but it is what it is. We’ve been to half a dozen games - it’s well timed & paced for families and for my two, having back-to-back equal men and women’s games is transformational. It’s packed for good reason.
Perhaps over 200 balls if you are expecting to watch both games, but if you are travelling a significant distance to watch an event it works nicely - if the 9yo wants to stay they’ve probably pegged it correctly (horses for courses). T20 does make more sense at club level.
On a deliveries per hour rate, T20 is just much more efficient - some 100 games take longer than a normal T20, and you get 20% less action for your money!
Hmm, it feels brisker. Fitting that notional 65min slot, only swapping ends every other over (I hate calling them fives) & penalising slow over rates with fielding restrictions feels right. The only time we’ve really been left twiddling our thumbs was during a rain delay, which is hard to criticise.
Could have done it by enhancing the blast. Didn't need a new competition. Enjoy your Monday streams while you have them as the ECB are intent on reducing county cricket to accommodate the 16.4
There's a real middle aged arrogance in the discussion around test cricket - it was the 2nd or 3rd most watched sport on tv, including by kids like you and me, for about 50 years, and yet everyone think "kids these days" don't have the attention span for it. Its just insulting and patronising.
Amateur cricket nowadays is almost entirely made up of the privately educated, the Asian community, and middle aged people like me who got into the game before 2006. Its a real shame
There's maybe the odd person who was taken to the local club by their dad or something, but ~95% of people will have watched it on the tv first, then bought a bat and had a go in the garden. Same way people get into any sport, really.
As a primary kid, I went to the local club before watching on TV. Same with all the other boys. Someone at school went so others did the same. When I coached juniors between 2008 and 2016 all the new kids had not watched on TV either, they came through pushing through the local school newsletter
Cricket was on free to air TV until the mid 2000s, and yet interest in the game was continuously waning. The issues facing cricket are many fold, not least keeping young people interested in the game after their mid teens.
No magic bullet, of course. But making live test cricket unavailable can't have helped maintain interest in that form of the game.
School cricket for all? I was in charge of our school 3rd XI for many years.
Ask kids who have access to Sky if they watch live cricket. There won't be many. No easy fix, as you say, but the ECB could do more to run introductory formats in primary schools and distribute details of the local club network at those sessions.
Look at the latest proposals for the CC. Realise you're new, so may not get it, but it's being strangled. Death by a 1000 cuts. And then all you'll have is your pyjama cricket and the glee at denying old school fans their game and boiling their pass. Have a lovely evening
Out of interest, which platform lured you into the franchise 100? Quite a few core cricket fans have a distaste to the 100 due to the County disconnection and pathway. So it will be interesting to learn your intro to the game 👍
It was the pandemic and all I was reading was all the newspaper coverage about how bad it was so I bought tickets with my mum (a childhood cricket fan) to the very first men’s match at the Oval to see for myself. She loved it, I thought it was great fun and a bit silly, ultimately got me into CC.
Yes although “support” is too strong a word…, quite nice to not feel it’s all as partisan as football. I have my membership and just like being able to pop in on a Friday.
If the 100 genuinely is bringing people into cricket not just the 100 or twenty20 (and I struggle who would be attracted by the former but not already by the latter) then great.
Unfortunately you won't get to see much women's cricket at Lord's because they decided that Eton Vs Harrow is more important than playing women's cricket at the ground outside of The Hundred and the occasional international.
It's smashed attendance records for women's cricket year on year. Both Lord's and the Oval broke records last year for attendance of the women's tournament. Plus a third of tickets last year were sold to people totally new to the sport.
But it's sponsored by crisps and that's evil, apparently.
Well I wasn’t going to get into t20 because some idiot put it all on Sky when I was a teenager and I’ve always been too tight to pay for Sky.
Basically hundred looked quite fun and crucially had enough free to air and bbc support to get me interested. Now I find the format daft. But it’s simple.
100% - a huge amount of turning noses up at the Hundred (I’ve been sceptical) - but appears to be drawing in huge numbers. There are flaws but it’s definitely putting bums on seats, attracting eyeballs etc. can’t argue with that!
I’m a big fan of Pommie Mbangwa on comms, and he has the right energy, but not sure he’d be right for the championship.
Richie Benaud would have been the dream, of course
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https://matchcentre.kncb.nl/matches/
The trouble with the streams is I end up watching!
School cricket for all? I was in charge of our school 3rd XI for many years.
"C'mon The Brave!" 😁
Went to The Oval in 2023 to see Surrey v Northamptonshire. Great day with some excellent friends.
And it's definitely far less partisan.
You should try and get to some outgrounds this summer.
But I don't have to like the 100!
But it's sponsored by crisps and that's evil, apparently.
Basically hundred looked quite fun and crucially had enough free to air and bbc support to get me interested. Now I find the format daft. But it’s simple.
I’m a big fan of Pommie Mbangwa on comms, and he has the right energy, but not sure he’d be right for the championship.
Richie Benaud would have been the dream, of course