"Time to franchise red ball cricket"- Kevin Pietersen
Former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen has issued a call to action to franchise red-ball cricket as it would help preserve the oldest form of the game and players built for the format.
The all-rounder took to Instagram to share a post that talks about how the ECB prioritized white-ball cricket in 2015 and the end result was the side winning the 2019 World Cup. He called for a similar approach in a post that read:
"The ECB decided in 2015 to priortise white-ball cricket. They won the WC & now have a franchise tournament. Now is the time to franchise red-ball cricket. Strengthen all teams. Good players survive! Test cricket will die if they don't."
Kevin Pietersen captioned the post: "My opinion on wanting Test Cricket to still be the pinnacle. Thoughts?"
You can view the post below:
Kevin Pietersen on The Hundred: "I'm all for innovation"
Ahead of the start of the tournament, Pietersen labeled it a "controversial" concept. Speaking about the edition, he said:
"The format of The Hundred is controversial but, ultimately, will be proved right or wrong in a month’s time when we know whether or not the public liked it," the former England skipper wrote in a column for Betway.
"I’m all for innovation. I was an innovator when I played. I like to see progressive thinking and an embracing of change."
He said the format was similar to T20s in terms of innings length, but adapting to the format would take some time.
"Obviously it’s quite similar to T20 in terms of length of innings, but everybody is going to be learning about its intricacies – whether to bat or bowl first, how to pace an innings, when to bowl which bowlers – as we go along."- Kevin Pietersen
"I played at the start of the T20 revolution and it took a long time to get used to it and to become engaged in it.
"But it went on to change the game, so it would be wrong not to wait and see how The Hundred pans out in the next few weeks before making a judgement."