With the future of the Hundred uncertain, Richard has written a piece about the tournament over the last few years and the angle which critics are ignoring: the women's game.
The advantages of the Hundred
The Hundred has been brilliant for cricket. It has addressed long standing issues of inequality between men’s and women’s cricket and by putting teams on the same platform has showcased the quality and excitement of the women’s game and allowed female cricketers to tell their stories and be widely known.
The purpose of the Hundred was to give this profile to women’s cricket and to widen the audience for all cricket, not just to target existing cricket fans. There was a perceived marketing problem with tournaments like the T20 Blast because they were evening matches which frequently attracted large groups of men having post-work drinks or on stag nights. This in turn alienated families, female fans and groups from minority ethnic groups who might not be comfortable with excessive alcohol consumption. On top of this, until the Hundred, no cricket had been shown on free to air terrestrial TV since the 2005 Men’s Ashes, meaning that a whole generation had been denied access to cricket without already being a fan who has bought a subscription.
On the whole, cricket has found a new audience through the Hundred, however, it has also alienated many long-established traditional cricket fans who are affiliated to counties. This group has now effectively taken control of the ECB in the appointments of Richard Thompson as Chair and Richard Gould as Chief Executive.
These were the two top people at Surrey in 2018 – the only county to oppose the ECB when it established the Hundred. It would appear that under the leadership of these two men, the Hundred is under serious threat. This worry has been further compounded by the sudden resignation of Andrew Strauss from his role as strategic advisor to the ECB on 28th April.
The difficulties surrounding the Hundred
The big problem with the Men’s Hundred is that it cannot compete with other T20 franchise competitions, particularly the Indian Premier League. The IPL is a 10 team franchise competition which runs for 2 months in April and May each year. It is for exclusively for men, although after 14 years it did finally establish a 5 team women’s tournament running for three weeks in March this year.
Whereas the women’s Hundred attracts the very best players from the England national team and from around the world, in 2022 the men’s Hundred was fatally compromised by England’s Men having two tests against South Africa during the Hundred and there was a failure to attract any top global players from Australia or India to the men’s competition.
Any new fans exploring cricket who were looking for recognisable names when deciding to buy a ticket or to watch a game on terrestrial TV would have been disappointed if they expected to see Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Jasprit Bumrah, Rishabh Pant. Other recognisable cricketers such as Jos Buttler and Joe Root played very little in the competition. The Hundred has no financial clout to attract any of the top names of men’s cricket and last year was struggling to even get England contracted players to play.
Another issue arising now is that nobody else is using the Hundred format. It is an oddity in global cricket and no other country seems enthusiastic to start using it. Is it doomed to be an experiment that never really caught on, the sporting equivalent of the Sinclair C5?
For the Hundred to work, as a way of expanding the game, increasing participation and reaching a new audience, it needs to be on during the school holidays, with games every day, with double headers, with star players and with good TV and radio coverage on BBC and Sky.
It seems that the 18 men’s counties have a decision to make – do we want or need a franchise cricket competition in England? If so, it cannot be made up of the 18 counties – that is not how franchise competitions work. There are 38 first class teams in India – they are not demanding all to be IPL franchises. It would not work.
If the counties decide that we do not want a franchise competition, we can revert to the T20 Blast or the John Player League or whatever structure you would like, but the steps forward in making the game more equal will be undone in the process. There cannot be an equivalent 18 teams for women when there are only 100 professional cricketers in England. Any attempt to do this would fatally compromise the quality of the product on offer.
What is more, the double-header format, with the women’s game starting at 3pm could only work during school holidays. To try this at any time outside of the 20th July – 1st September window would mean there was little or no audience for it.
The solution - It is time for the ECB to back the women’s game.
If the men’s counties don’t want The Hundred, then The Hundred should simply be a women’s competition just like the very successful Commonwealth games cricket competition was. There could still be double-headers, with the home side playing two other teams on each match day. This means the paying public are getting good value. The TV deal would have to be re-negotiated, but the costs would be reduced by not having to pay very high amounts for the many mediocre male cricketers currently being paid considerably more than the best female players in the world. Test venues should still be used and the marketing budget should still be kept high.
Women should be given priority access to the big stadiums for this tournament. This cannot be the KSL mark 2 – it has to be promoted with the expectation that tens of thousands will turn up to each game. The purpose of this competition is about opening up new markets. This is a crucial moment for women’s sport.
Football and Rugby are filling huge stadiums for women’s games which are marketed well. Cricket needs to step up now or end up being left behind. So my first option would be for the Hundred to continue being a competition involving both men’s and women’s teams in which equity and inclusion is modelled. If the men’s counties don’t want that, then a women’s only Hundred could be the perfect way to demonstrate that women’s sport can go it alone successfully.