ECB presents 100-ball domestic game for men and women

[S.Kennedy]

Thus far Root, Broad, Morgan, Bumble and Vaughan like it, and everybody else hates it. The first three are payed by the ECB. The latter two work for broadcasters who have payed the ECB generously to broadcast the thing.

 

[Starfighter]

In other news water has been to found to be quite wet indeed.

 

[Starfighter]

Wisden - Harnessing the millennial bug

This from 2018's Wisden makes interesting reading, a Harrison for vs Dobell against article. And bear in mind that at the time this would have been written Dobell likely wouldn't have known the new competition would be of a completely different format.

Some select highlights:

Harrison:

But you only have to look at the huge success of the Indian Premier League and Australia's Big Bash in different markets, with a format invented here, to see the potential, and need, for us to go to another level.

One is drawing from a massive market the other is on free-to-air TV. Think about that for a moment. Nothing to do with the format somehow being too dense.

I've seen the tournament described as - and criticised for - being a city T20. That's true, in that the venues will be based around our major cities, so we can draw the biggest crowds. But the appeal of the teams themselves must be nationwide, reflecting the globalised world we live in.

The second sentence is strikes a new bottom in stupidity.

Spectators will get a completely different match-day experience from anything we've previously offered. The young in particular will feel connected to the game... (etc) in a way they have not felt before [In Aus almost every year 6 kid has a passable idea how cricket works. Cause we have been able to watch it -Sf]. You won't have to be a first-class county member to come and watch the new competition - although you will be very welcome if you are [not really -Sf]. You won't need to know the ins and outs of the lbw Law, or even how many balls are in an over.[there's the reveal] You'll be attracted to the competition because you love cricket presented in this way: you enjoy watching sixes fly and fielders pull off stunning catches - brilliant skills with bat and ball [how does ordinary T20 not present this? Also brilliant skills with the ball? Gimme a break... -Sf].

We make no apologies for doing things differently, or for having our eyes firmly on the future. We want to keep our game front and centre of the national conversation, making sure cricket means as much to the next generation of Wisden readers as it does to this.

​If you actually gave a flying **** about the future of cricket, the sport, then you would;t have sold out and made it invisible to the most of your potential audience you greedy money grubbing ****s. It's all about how much $$$ you can make.

Dobell:

Harrison and his ECB colleagues deserve credit for acknowledging the need for change. Cricket in this country has... ...been ebbing in public relevance. Sure, this was a problem of the board's making: their predecessors had sold the TV rights to subscription broadcasters, after all. They were right to conclude that Twenty20 is the vehicle to inspire a new generation of players and supporters, and right to explore ways to exploit it potential. But, as Captain Scott might have told them, not all explorations end happily. And while that broadcast deal is a lot of money, there's a good chance it will turn out to be fool's gold.

We needed evolution not revolution. We needed context and free-to-air coverage.

And Andy Bull wrote a pointedly titled article in The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/apr/24/100-reasons-ecb-new-cricket-the-spin

it wants to “attract a new audience” of “mums and kids in the school holidays” by making the game “as simple as possible for them to understand”. Because mums are incapable of understanding overs. Obviously.

You wonder exactly what kind of audience Harrison imagines he is pitching this to. People who won’t even notice that their favourite player has left the middle because he was hit on the pads, who can’t grasp 20 six-ball overs, but can understand 15 with another of 10, at the end.

If the broadcasters need the ECB to fit games into a two-and-a-half hour window, fine, bring in stringent punishments for slow play.

Hear hear!!

we have The Hundred, an idea no one in cricket likes, and no one outside cricket knows they want. Harrison and Strauss have so little faith in their own sport they don’t believe it’s fit for purpose, so little respect for their own fans they are sure they can afford to upset them, and so little regard for the general public they believe they can flog them cricket for idiots.

 

[cnerd123]

It just boils down to those running cricket who see it as a product to be sold, and are trying to find out what version of cricket they can produce that will sell the best. They aren't interested in maintaining its integrity as a sport, they're interested in competiting with TV shows and movies for people's attention (and thus ad money)

They just don't see the fundamental difference between sport and scripted entertainment - that sport doesn't exist to be sold and to make money. Sportsmen aren't actors. Administrators don't play the role of writers and producers. Just because televised sports broadcasts compete in the entertainment market doesnt mean that you treat it the same way. Because when you switch off the cameras and send the crews home...people will still be playing cricket. Like they have long before these people came and like they will long after they are gone. Like they do in parks and streets and village greens in the thousands of games every day that go un watched, only to be enjoyed by those participating in it.

And it's these people - the ones who actually keep the game alive - that you alienate with dumb **** like this. And then we're left wondering why less people are watching and playing our beautiful game.

 

[S.Kennedy]

Wisden - Harnessing the millennial bug

This from 2018's Wisden makes interesting reading, a Harrison for vs Dobell against article. And bear in mind that at the time this would have been written Dobell likely wouldn't have known the new competition would be of a completely different format.

Some select highlights:

Harrison:

One is drawing from a massive market the other is on free-to-air TV. Think about that for a moment. Nothing to do with the format somehow being too dense.

The second sentence is strikes a new bottom in stupidity.



​If you actually gave a flying **** about the future of cricket, the sport, then you would;t have sold out and made it invisible to the most of your potential audience you greedy money grubbing ****s. It's all about how much $$$ you can make.

Dobell:




And Andy Bull wrote a pointedly titled article in The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/apr/24/100-reasons-ecb-new-cricket-the-spin




Hear hear!!

I have the new Wisden. Future-Proof Tom's article is loaded with managerial-corporate speak as expected.

Booth is angry on twitter as this competition was said to have had a gestation period of about six months and that article by Future-Proof Tom was only submitted early March. Basically he submitted an article under a false premise.

I haven't got the foggiest on how to embed tweets so you'll have to scroll down,

https://twitter.com/the_topspin

 

[Starfighter]

Lawrence Booth‏ @the_topspin Apr 21
1) Galling for @WisdenAlmanack to have commissioned a piece by ECB chief exec Tom Harrison arguing in favour of the new "T20" tournament, only to discover - a week after publication - that it's not T20 at all.
Lawrence Booth‏ @the_topspin Apr 21
2) ECB say plans for The Hundred were in the pipeline for six months - yet the article was filed in January. Also makes @GeorgeDobell1's excellent piece in @WisdenAlmanack arguing against the new tournament look out of date.
Lawrence Booth‏ @the_topspin Apr 21
3) I put this to the ECB yesterday, and their argument was that The Hundred was in fact a late development, despite Sanjay Patel syaing during a conference call on Thursday that it had been in pipeline for six months. Oh well.

Lawrence Booth‏ @the_topspin Apr 23
One county chief exec on The Hundred: "There is no future for this format unless IPL and Big Bash adopt it, and they won't. BBC2 are perhaps hoping this will become Celebrity Big Batting."

 

[S.Kennedy]

I get the feeling they're pulling it out of their arse.

 

[Bijed]

it wants to “attract a new audience” of “mums and kids in the school holidays” by making the game “as simple as possible for them to understand”. Because mums are incapable of understanding overs. Obviously.

More than just the fact that you're totally right about overs not being a massively difficult concept, I just don't agree with their logic whatsoever. When I first started watching cricket, my enjoyment of the game was based on seeing the ball get hit a long way and/or hitting the stumps. I knew that I wanted my team's score to go as high as possible and that losing wickets was bad, vice-versa if my team was bowling. As a kid, the complexity of the rules didn't bother me - I might not have understood why one LBW appeal was out and the other wasn't (hawkeye showed them both hitting the stumps, why weren't they both out? I also thought the umpires on EA cricket were biased against me for this reason), but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the game. I mean, I appreciate the sport more now that I do understand it more fully, but that was just something that happened naturally over time because I absorbed it from watching the sport anyway because it was good to watch whether or not I knew 100% what was going on in every aspect of it

I mean, I'm fine with the shorter formats having more of a focus than they used to because they probably do appeal to younger people more, but it's not clear-cut by any means - I know it's only an anecdote, but last time I was at Lords there was a dad sat in front of me with his 2 daughters who were probably 4 & 6 years old and they had a great time. They definitely didn't understand everything either - when an appeal for a catch was revealed to be not out because the ball had hit only the pad, one of was convinced that mean the batsman should definitely have been out LBW - but this in no way stopped them from having a great day, you could tell they were loving it all the way through.

 

[S.Kennedy]

I have a feeling they want a sport-entertainment show, like a Strictly Come Dancing thing. Two hours on prime time Beeb. Celebrity guest starts. Forsyth would've hosted if he was alive. ''Strictly Come Cricket''.

 

[Midwinter]

".... have so little faith in their own sport they don’t believe it’s fit for purpose,"

This

 

[Starfighter]

It's one of those things where I genuinely do not understand the thought process that has gone into it. Like at all. It's like the ECB are living in some alternate reality that I can neither see nor understand to even the slightest extent.

 

[theegyptian]

It's one of those things where I genuinely do not understand the thought process that has gone into it. Like at all. It's like the ECB are living in some alternate reality that I can neither see nor understand to even the slightest extent.

I think it's fairly easy to understand the thought process. They wanted a tournament that was different from the abundance of T20 comps around the world, and differed from the county domestic t20 that will remain.

Counties are happy because the 100 ball comp clearly differs from the domestic t20. Domestic T20 is now not the inferior partner to the city T20, it's a different format. They need the counties happy because they are the ones that will vote through the changes.
On the world scale the T20 format is already over saturated- and each board is competing for that small part of the pie that is left after the IPL. ECB trott out another T20 comp it's just the latest in a long line of comps with nothing special to sell it to broadcasters/fans.

 

[vcs]

It just boils down to those running cricket who see it as a product to be sold, and are trying to find out what version of cricket they can produce that will sell the best. They aren't interested in maintaining its integrity as a sport, they're interested in competiting with TV shows and movies for people's attention (and thus ad money)

They just don't see the fundamental difference between sport and scripted entertainment - that sport doesn't exist to be sold and to make money. Sportsmen aren't actors. Administrators don't play the role of writers and producers. Just because televised sports broadcasts compete in the entertainment market doesnt mean that you treat it the same way. Because when you switch off the cameras and send the crews home...people will still be playing cricket. Like they have long before these people came and like they will long after they are gone. Like they do in parks and streets and village greens in the thousands of games every day that go un watched, only to be enjoyed by those participating in it.

And it's these people - the ones who actually keep the game alive - that you alienate with dumb **** like this. And then we're left wondering why less people are watching and playing our beautiful game.

Great post.

 

[theegyptian]

Maybe it's also a negotiating tactic by the ECB. They put something out there outlandish and radical that gets everybody up in arms, makes the city t20 that they finally agree upon that bit more palatable.

 

[S.Kennedy]

This is a good line,

The ECB may have just invented the Betamax of cricket formats when VHS cricket has already captured the market.

https://dropinpitch.wordpress.com/2018/04/23/the-hundred-the-final-countdown/

Decent article. A summary of why Lawrence Booth is angry, the piece in question being in Wisden 2018.

The ECB say that the new concept has been developed over the past six months yet only last month its CEO was penning a piece arguing in support of what was then being publicised as a new franchise Twenty20 tournament. At best hasty and poorly communicated preparation, at worst an obfuscation of the truth, in itself far more damning.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...tournament-women-andrew-strauss-a8319451.html

 

[S.Kennedy]

100-ball scoreboard may be simplified to lure new fans

Scoreboards for cricket’s new 100-ball competition could be stripped of all information other than the total, number of wickets and number of balls left. The format, announced last week, is designed to make games shorter and more attractive to a fresh audience.

Clare Connor, director of women’s cricket at the ECB, said: “What we are talking about is simplifying the game. The question is how we get to that simplified point where we can put on a cricket match that is more easily understood.

“The scoreboard is a very complex presentation of information at the moment. This gives us huge scope to really take those barriers away.”

- https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...-may-be-simplified-to-lure-new-fans-gq8gsljlv

Jack Brooks Retweeted Lawrence Booth
We as players knew nothing of this new concept until this week , even the press knew about it before us! Regardless if it goes ahead and is a success it would be nice to know as players what is going on!!

Switch Hit podcast,
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/video_audio/index.html?genre=27

 

[Starfighter]

Wow! How the hell are the new fans of this game supposed to know what their favourite player is on?


It looks like Strauss and Harrison are envisioning something which will make modern action movies look cerebral in comparison. And it's very clear that they view cricket in the same terms too. And they clearly don't think the modern game is fit for purpose.

The idea that cricket's structure and scoring are somehow too complex when tennis and its scoring system, rugby (drop goals 3 points, try 5, plus conversion 2 etc), whatever the heck American football is, baseball and so on are all popular is just so, so staggeringly removed from reality. I feel like I need to berate Strauss and Harrison in person.

 

[Bijed]

I suppose if nothing else, this is the closest we're going to get to official recognition of the Cowan as a unit\measure of balls faced

 

[Prince EWS]

If they want the games to go quicker, how about not allowing field changes mid-over. ie. the captain is only allowed to make changes to the field at the start of each over (or if a new batsman comes on strike for the first time in an over). That would save a **** load of time that slows down T20s

Change of ends once per game at the 10 over mark could work

These are actually really good ideas that I wouldn't mind applied to 'real' T20 cricket.

But I think a lot of people in the thread are actually looking at it backwards. I don't think they tried to shorten the length of a T20 game and then came to the conclusion that it meant they needed to create an entirely new format; I think they decided they needed to create a new format first and then came out with the dodgy rationale afterwards. I believe the new format has been created purely because the ECB wanted to create their own version of the IPL/BBL/CPL with just a handful of sides, but knew the exist counties would absolutely revolt if they were told they wouldn't be part of the biggest T20 tournament in the country anymore. They're just getting around that by creating something new without the involvement of the counties; I reckon the ECB would have been just as happy if this was a normal franchise T20 tournament.

 

[Borges]

... counties would absolutely revolt if they were told they wouldn't be part of the biggest T20 tournament in the country anymore. They're just getting around that by creating something new without the involvement of the counties; I reckon the ECB would have been just as happy if this was a normal franchise T20 tournament.

Yes.