Possible New Tournament on the Horizon and its Causing Controversy

The story, suggestion, idea and now controversial plan has been circulating the press for the past couple of days with England’s director Andrew Strauss wanting to produce a new tournament, 100-ball competition. Perhaps with the World Cup in mind which comes about in May 2019, the host might have the right idea to boost the game’s appeal by reaching new audiences and fans.

What is 100-ball Cricket?

The idea proposed was specifically aimed at the summer holiday crowd, this being mothers and children. The England and Wales Cricket Board were hoping to bring this new format inside of their new 8 team city-based tournament.

Strauss has made it clear that he wishes to bring the game out and appeal to those that aren’t encouraged by the traditional game.

He hopes the idea in its most basic form will allow people to understand cricket better. It would certainly find a huge appeal with Indian online casino sites and advertising given the quick nature of the games idea, which suits live betting formats you can bet on during a game.

The idea would see innings consist of the traditional 6-ball overs and with that a final 10-ball over. This, in turn, would make the game 20 balls shorter than what you would see in a standard Twenty20 match.

The selected venues for this competition that lasts 5-weeks are Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, London, Nottingham, Manchester and Southampton.

The 100-ball competition would be running conjunction with the existing T20 Blast which would go unaffected should the proposed changes see the light of day.

The T20 has been a huge success for the ECB and it is because of this they feel that the 100-ball would work as well.

Former England bowler Chris Tremlett isn’t going to be one endorsing this competition stating that the T20 works fine enough and thusly “why try to get funky”.  But there are those in support.

England’s Joe Root Backs 100-ball Gamble

Root agreed that the change or at least the idea would strike a whole new audience, insisting that the more people and especially the kids that they can get into sports the better.

With T20 and other areas of cricket seemingly working well enough on their own, Root does state that this 100-ball proposal must not be measured against other formats, it has to be natural to gather a new audience.

The key fear that it does have a bigger appeal, when T20 games go on beyond 4 hours, this is not something young players would want or handle. Alastair Cook even added that this would be another new and exciting step for cricket. He highlighted that if social media was around in 2003 when the T20 began we would be looking at the same type of arguments and look how that turned out.

So what do you think? Is it something to hedge your bets on or are you fully confident that the steps the ECB are taking fully with the interest of the sport and not their own pockets? You can leave a comment in the box below and tell us what you think or if you have some ideas.