The ECB gathered at Edgbaston more than 30 of the nation’s most talented white-ball players, men and women, last Wednesday to kickstart the publicity drive for August’s third season of the Hundred. Inevitably, many were asked about the competition’s future.
“With everything there’s going to be critics,” said Matthew Potts, the Durham and England bowler who plays for Northern Superchargers. “All I would say is be patient with it. Almost accept it just for the time being and see how you feel in a couple of years when the tournament has had time to bed itself into the game.”
On the same day, Rob Key, England’s managing director of men’s cricket, gave an interview to the BBC and the future of the Hundred was discussed. “I don’t see why our competition can’t be the second-best to the IPL,” he said of its place in a calendar increasingly crowded with short-form franchise tournaments, adding that long-term commitment is required “because we are building towards something in the years to come”.
By Thursday, sources at the ECB were briefing that the tournament might be heading for the sporting scrapheap. There is a chance this was part of a cunning promotional campaign – the news certainly got people talking about the Hundred in a way organisers of the Edgbaston gathering could barely dream of – but more likely this is the beginning of the end.
So the dance starts again. Though a mid-season World Cup has made this year an anomaly, the key elements of the English football calendar – a professional league split into four national divisions that start in August and end in May, an FA Cup that leading teams enter in January at the third-round stage and a League Cup – have been unchanged since 1960-61. Cricket’s administrators, by contrast, never seem sure what should be played and when.
The latest mooted revolution follows the appointments last year of Richard Thompson and Richard Gould, noted Hundred sceptics when they worked together at Surrey, as the ECB’s chair and chief executive respectively. The skids were then greased by the publication this month of a report by Fanos Hira, chairman of Worcestershire and senior accountant, who found that projections made by Deloitte when they assessed the Hundred’s viability in 2016 have proven extremely optimistic. In the first year the competition generated only 41.8% of the income predicted and even a generous assessment would put its losses at £9m.
And so, a shift. Before their new format launched the ECB trademarked its name in India, Australia and New Zealand – they hoped the Hundred would take over the world. Now they want the world to take over the Hundred.
Hira’s believes they must “explore fresh injections of capital” given that “organic growth options appear limited”, and external investment is needed if the competition is to boost salaries – capped at £125,000 for men and £31,250 for women – to a level capable of attracting the world’s best players.
This year’s first edition of South Africa’s SA20, which like the Hundred is played over almost exactly a month but unlike it opened itself up to IPL franchise owners and their riches, paid its stars as much as £400,000. But the ECB’s novelty format is an obstacle to attracting those same franchise owners to England.
The Hundred has had some notable successes. With the help of heavily subsidised tickets and its place in the peak of summer it has attracted large numbers of people who had not previously attended live cricket. Running the women’s competition alongside the men’s has boosted the profile of, and engagement with, the women’s game to such an extent that abandoning that relationship now is surely unimaginable, but mirroring the mooted 18-team two-division replacement format would be a stretch.
It has also brought live cricket back to the BBC and a delighted Sky, whose money is crucial to the health of the game and whose contract with the ECB runs for another five years. Last year, live coverage was watched by 14.1 million viewers, of which 31% were women and 42% watched no other cricket in 2022. Bryan Henderson, Sky’s director of cricket, said the broadcaster “couldn’t be happier” and were “thrilled to be bringing this competition to cricket fans old and new until at least 2028”.
For many followers of cricket the birth of the Hundred was particularly divisive, rancorous and controversial. It would be some achievement if, a few years later, its death ends up being exactly the same.
