The Hundred: Funky, confused future of cricket
Do not be lured by the glitz, glamour and fandom around the Indian Premier League, do not bother to debate about the lucrative prospects of T20 franchises, instead just wait and blink, the format is now old, it has been shunted away, a new format has taken its place and people are gasping for breath!
120 balls is no longer the future, it might be present, but the English and Wales Cricket Board has decided to chart out a ‘new alternative future’.
Need more people in the grounds; shove away 120 balls, introduce 100 balls, 20 balls will make a lot of difference, it will be an enigma, and in this fleeting world where everything is either black or white, it ‘might’ capture emotions.
Welcome to a new world, welcome to what the ECB calls, a radical route. This is going to be a new city-based competition which will be a 100-balls-a-side affair.
Now, according to this concept, there will be two eight-team competitions - for men's and women's teams - consisting of 15 traditional six-ball overs, and a final 10-ball over, a 20-delivery shortfall on traditional T20 matches.
Why are eyebrows being furrowed? It is radical, and it has to be kneejerk, so sit tight and either embrace it or don’t even bother; Is this the new future of cricket?
Yes, there are positive vibes around it with smatterings of muted apprehensions, but, hey, ECB started Twenty20, so before you walk away in disgust, pause to decipher the motive behind this move!
Thus, in a day when experiments only see the light of the day, if they are extremes, at a time when the ‘gentleman’ sits in a corner and quietly gapes ahead, cricket has to work around obstacles, skirt the impediments and refuse to lie down. Well, thus, this format seems to have its heart in the right place, at least for now!
Money dictates the way we wake up every morning; it is but an inevitable factor acting as the fulcrum around any move, but that can wait. ECB has already inked a colossal broadcasting contract, so the wades of cash have been sorted there; We should view this move purely as a method to reinvent itself, and perhaps along the way, give the sport an additional format to drool on!
But, then, will this format be only about marketing gimmicks, will it only be about building a façade around the game? And then that countdown every ball, math lessons while watching the game, yup, parents will drive children to the grounds!
We are not even speaking about the response of the cricketers, but now we will. T20 was no longer viewed as hit and miss, it required specific skillsets. It was more than the blood-sucking vulture it was deemed to be, it was more than just additional benefits to the players; it was a format which helped them hone their skills specific to the demands; and now, just as they were getting settled, they have to wake up and mould careers again around this new concept.
So they will complain, and they are, but no one can even blame them!
The county-based T20 league was tinkered with. It was pushed to the peak season, it was placed on the weekends and yet the participating players were not convinced. They never got the eyeballs the IPL, BBL, or even CPL got. They complained and no one blamed them!
ECB made a splash and came up with this 100 balls concept. They are convinced this will shake the entire system and the IPL, BBL, and even the CPL will follow their trodden path.
Clearly, they have not thought this through. At a time when scouts are scattered around the globe hunting for talents, England are isolating their own players - how will people pick players for a 120-ball league based on 100 balls?
At a time when leading England players have opted out of red-ball contracts, and are looking at becoming ‘freelancers’ in the T20 space, is the ECB not clipping its wings by restricting them to its own confined cocoon?
Well, the players will take part, but they will complain, again!
"What we're trying to do is appeal to a new audience, people that aren't traditional cricket fans," said Andrew Strauss, the ECB boss.
Already, the traditional fans are licking their wounds at the step-motherly treatment meted out to Championship cricket; who would have thought the T20 players would be joining them; yes, T20 has aged rapidly.
"The more people and kids we can get into sport, the better. We've got to be very careful we don't measure it against the other formats,” Joe Root, the young England captain who has seen T20 right from the inception, also the England captain who failed to fetch an IPL contract weighed in.
Money might not be the driving force, money might not even enter the minds of players, but when the games begin, and after all the marketing, bouquets and brickbats, if the future remains blurry, will ECB backtrack?
"When they came to the idea of the 100-ball scenario, I really enjoyed it," Eoin Morgan, England’s captain for the limited overs format said, not too bothered with the relative lack of interest to the T20 blast has received over the years, perhaps he has traveled the world playing in the various leagues and has witnessed how England is no more than a dwarf amidst the mushrooming franchise model all over the globe.
He wants cricket to adapt or he fears cricket would die!
Slightly unnerving, isn’t it?
Perhaps behind this smokescreen is a person who has to echo what the board wants him to utter.
Confusing, eh, all too confusing, but then the future is confusing, how about marketing it this way?
Let us all keep blinking, and breathe…