One hundred thoughts about The Hundred sounds like the opposite of an un-put-downable book, so here are a mere 50. A dip into the odd game with one round to play.
1 After seven rounds of The Hundred the table could hardly be tighter. Just three points separate franchises 1-7. That leaves Southern Brave – of all people! – hugging a single win, three points adrift.
2 It makes you wonder whether the scoring system could do with some adjusting. In such short games it’s hard to offer the usual type of bonus points. Batting totals don’t mount up into hundreds, and offering bowling points for wickets taken within 10, 20, 30 deliveries sounds unconvincing.
3 The big successes: huge crowds turning out early, so not just to watch the men’s game later; full media coerage available free-of-charge; greater exposure for the game of cricket
4 The long-term effects are yet to be assessed, especially on the young generation watching; will they want and be able to play the game? Will more schools take up the game?
5 Why have Southern Brave failed this season? They are already eliminated from the eliminators, and we haven’t started counting the shopping days till Christmas. Put it down to the draft. As champions they had last pick.
Every side has lost at least two matches; all but SB have won at least three. Players have admitted the current programme, the shortest yet, gives them minimal chance to practise. The sequence reduces to match-travel-match.
And that, incidentally, is how it used to be in the old-style county championship: two 3-day matches per week, no play on Sunday allowed, and no motorways. Eoin Morgan admitted: “Things have to go your way.” In other words, chance plays a disproportionately large role in success.
6 The cricket year is a mess. One result is the cramming of tournaments into a small time-pocket. Or, alternatively, one tournament interrupts another.
7 More vocabulary to be learned tonight: ‘Dragging her length back’ = bowling shorter. ‘Back of a length’ = short of a length. When did that change of vocabulary take place, and why?
8 Jo Gardner mishit a ball that ricocheted on to the base of the stumps. Question: how do the authorities ensure that the bails remain dislodgeable, even when lights, cameras and other paraphernalia are added to them? We’re used to heavy bails when the wind gets up; everyone accepts the chance that they will stay put when the ball strikes. Ah! Lydia Greenway says heavy bails were in use.
9 Smriti Mandanha’s first three innings totted up to 17 runs. That brings me to the sore topic of franchise cricket and players treated as commodities. Overseas players arrive when it suits them (financially). Somebody else has to make way for them. And if they don’t produce the goods, are we supposed to feel sorry for them? The magic sporting word is ‘Pressure!’
10 In the Southern Brave-Trent Rockets game Alexa Stonehouse dismissed Danni Wyatt first ball, the England opener skying to the keeper. So Wyatt couldn’t overtake Nat Sciver-Brunt as top 100 scorer. With her fourth ball Stonehouse then beat Maia Bouchier (England’s other opener) all ends up.
Charlotte Edwards will have been delighted to see another young Kent hopeful dismissing two of her three top batters for ducks. But Kent aren’t suitable material for Tier One next year.
11 TR are spin-heavy. That means young prospect Josie Groves rarely bowls. It’s swings and roundabouts for players like her. If the fates are kind, chances to play will come. If they don’t, at least each game is over quickly, reducing the time spent feeling sorry for yourself.
12 Commentary time: Kirstie Gordon bowled. Not a single mention of her or any delivery in the entire set. Why not? Sky had spotted the men arriving, so we had details of players fit and unfit, but not involved in the match we are watching. What are the priorities?
The next reference to the game in progress came off Alana King’s second delivery – only because it was hit for four. Jofra Archer’s bag had captured the cameras’ entire attention.
Brilliant fielding by Katie George runs out Georgia Adams. Morgan mentions only Nat Wraith’s glovework. He doesn’t recognise the fielder, but, ss he says: ‘Do the simple things well.’
Why do commentators get paid when they know nothing about so many of the players on the field?
13 Who’s in charge of cricket? The ICC? They don’t seem to have much control over nations that decide to stage their own franchise enterprise. So confusion reigns.
14 Welsh Fire v Birmingham Phoenix – there’s early rain, but the match isn’t shortened. More commentating trouble: Dominic Cork and Simon Doull ask why Shabnim Ismael doesn’t open the bowling. This is a repeated feature: it’s decided before the innings starts how they expect it to evolve. They concentrate almost exclusively on the overseas signings and the top England players.
Here the answer was obvious: Beth Langston was in form; Sterre Kalis was not seen as a main threat and Sophie Devine was inconsistent. Proof: one run off first 5. Leave Ismael to face the top batters.
15 A remarkable sequence: three appeals for lbw inside one set of five were all given. Richa Ghosh requested a review each time – NOT OUT! (Hayley Matthews turning the ball too much). Next ball, Ghosh came down the track, missed and was stumped.
16 Take another look at the advertising on the players’ shirts. Do the team dieticians approve of the sponsore chosen? Eat well, play well!
17 Oval Invincibles v London Spirit – Sunday morning sunshine, but LS’s powerplay left them 13-2! The ball was swinging a treat.
18 Ball 88: Sharma sweeps Wellington into Kapp’s hands and out. Lucky for her that, when she had to fetch a four from Sharma near the crowd, she wasn’t in Australia. She would have learned a whole new vocabulary.
19 Stuart Broad rightly queried the choice of Sophia Smale to bowl the penultimate “set of five deliveries” (aka “over”). She went for four first ball, but the next one clean bowls Eva Gray (28/22), another English player the commentators choose not to talk much about.
20 Cut-off time v unnecessary interruptions – the Strategic Time-out is a nonsense. It could run into trouble under the Trade Descriptions Act, or The Use of the English Language. We know why it’s there.
21 Who should bowl the last over? Commentators’ view nem.con: ‘Marizanne Kapp!’ Ryana Macdonald-Gay took it. It proved dramatic in the extreme: first ball a leg-side wide; a drive to square-leg for 1; two deliveries too high – free-hits, then a Yorker that beats Sharma, hits all three, but not out; 2 off the last. RMG still finished with 1-21 off 20.
22 As for Kapp: did Lauren Winfield-Hill distregard her because she’d dropped a dolly?
23 Big Question: is it wise to make your wicket-keeper captain? I’ve always felt the answer is no. There have been a very few outstanding exceptions, but the fact is, keeping is a full-time job, the most onerous on the field.
You’re expected to check the field placings every ball, have words of advice for the bowler, and decide who should come on next, plus explain yourself to the head coach afterwards – it’s an unequal battle.
Far easier to field in comfort at mid-off, enjoy the summer breeze and have plenty of time to collect your thoughts.
24 The reply: Charles Dagnall begins his commentary with reference to the height of the three men in the pod (Sky-talk for the commentary-box) “I’m 6-4”, he informs his audience. And a camera helps to confirm. Meantime he fails to introduce Tara Norris, the opening bowler. Boys will be boys.
25 The camera thoughtfully picks out a spectator reading the Sunday Times. That spontaneous commercial will add a few copper coins to Mr. Murdoch’s treasure chest.
26 Chamari Athapaththu looked justifiably concerned about her lack of runs. She hit a few fine fours to reach double figures, but when a Sarah Glenn leg-spinner hit her pad, LWH was unwilling to offer her a review so early in proceedings. is Athapaththu’s draft price, £30k, proving sensible?.
27 Both Alice Capsey and LWH, when well set, started dancing across the crease to distract the bowler, but this served only to distract themselves. Capsey (13/14) paid by having her leg bail removed as she walked towards point. It was her 20th birthday.
28 To Old Trafford for a not-quite Roses match – On Mel Jones’ birthday it was time for a cake. Sadly, this wasn’t TMS, so a cake had to be sought. For the BBC queues form to provide commentators’ favourite foodstuff.
29 A novelty: Beth Mooney was denied her 100 by a direct throw from long-off that found Sophie Ecclestone unable to return to the bowler’s end. So she finished 99*.
30 The Hundred can be hard on players. Just as commentators were calculating how Mooney could reach her hundred, Kathryn Bryce was walking off the field; the first voluntary retirement of the season. “Voluntary” ?
31 It’s an even harder life being a captain in this format. Hollie Armitage came in for plenty of criticism from the all-knowing pod about her bowling choices, field placements, even the decision to let Davina Perrin take first strike while Armitage stood at the non-striker’s end. On the principle ‘Youth knows no fears’ perhaps.
32 In the pod Katherine Sciver-Brunt was all in in favour of getting the runs on the board first. But nearly every captain winning the toss decides otherwise.
33 Imagine what cricket would look like if Kim Garth had not needed to leave Ireland to develop her game in Australia.
34 Do overseas players put English players in their place, or do English players improve by facing the world’s best? A central question. Young players reveal the effect it has on their own cricketing life sharing a changing-room with the likes of Meg Lanning or Ellyse Perry. So it’s all good news.
35 Yet another example of commentating. Danni Gregory was actually allowed to play! She replaced Ellie Threlkeld; Mooney took the gloves. A pod comment: “There’s a lot of potential there” – as if she’s at the start of her career.
36 Katherine Sciver-Brunt admitted her grave error in questioning the choice of Kathryn Bryce to bowl the last over. She went for Lauren Filer. Of course Ecclestone was right: Bryce is a canny operator, happy to take pace off the ball and cause the batter to mistime. She took a hat-trick. She added another to finish with 5-13.
37 There must be worse fates than signing on for one of the franchises, then not getting a single game. At least the torture is soon over. First match 23 July; final 18 August.
38 Never before the introduction of The Hundred have very young players had the chance to strut their stuff in front of a crowd of many thousands. These are the youngest:
Tilly Corteen-Coleman (Southern Brave) age 16
Davina Perrin (Northern Superchargers) age 17
Seren Smale (Birmingham Phoenix) age 19
Sophia Smale (Oval Invincibles) age 19
Alexa Stonehouse (Trent Rockets) age 19
Charis Pavely (Birmingham Phoenix) age 19
Josie Groves (Trent Rockets) age 19
Alice Capsey (Oval Invincibles) age 20, at last!
39 Phoenix v Rockets 120824 Edgbaston – Alexa Stonehouse is given the first ten. Why? She can make the new ball move disconcertingly, and the ball stops swinging much earlier than it should. She has Ellyse Perry (the greatest player in the world?) caught at extra..
40 The shorter the game, the riskier the batters’ approach to life. Even Amy Jones, facing her first ball from her pal Nat Sciver-Brunt, was prepared to attempt a paddle. She failed, neatly steering the ball into the stumps.
41 NSB gives herself ten too, then reintroduces Stonehouse. That adds some weight to my thoughts about the quality of the white ball being used.
42 Having taken two in two, NSB sets two slips. It’s so rare that some innocents might ask their parents “is that allowed?” Almost like proper cricket.
43 Very encouraging to hear Charis Pavely say she came late into the game. How many in The Hundred can claim that, even in cricket as a whole? There are very few youngsters who grow up in cricket-playing families. It’s the other 99% of the population cricket needs to attract.
44 Richa Ghosh doesn’t believe in running between the wickets. Hard to calculate how many runs she’s denied her side. She’s run out for 47, a skeet-shooting gold medal for Kirstie Gordon.
45 Some male commentators, especially Eoin Morgan and Kumar Sangakkara concentrate on giving advice. One such to a quick bowler would be: “aim for the base of the stumps”. And Ash Gardner does so, but she’s an off-spinner!.
46 Bryony Smith hits Ellyse Perry for three consecutive fours in the first over. Perry goes for 14. Is she listening to Sangakkara’s stream of advice as she bowls? I hope the children watching don’t feel they’re back in school. It’s holiday-time with the temperature in the thirties.
47 Why was The Hundred introduced? We would know the answer if we’d been flies on the wall at that meeting when somebody shouted: ‘Eureka, a Hundred!” That is, a game consisting of a bare 100 deliveries per team.
48 The answer was the dire need felt to bring some moeny back into the game. Almost every year since the Second World War Wisden’s esteemed editorial has bemoaned the decline of cricket. Full houses are rare occasions these days. Very few test matches count among their number.
49 The Hundred serves its purpose, but at a cost. Will its benefits transfer easily to the other formats? In women’s cricket they stretch from T20s through to 4-day test matches.
50 Certain skills needed in The Hundred are diametrically opposed to the longer versions of the game, in particular batting. It remains to be seen whether any future test matches will bring another advance in batting skills, thanks to lessons learned in The Hundred. The jury is still out.
