When Colin Graves became the ECB chairman back in 2015, when all The Hundred PR disasters were just a glint in an incompetent marketing director’s eye, he spoke about a sense of decline in the English game and the need to “reinvent and rejuvenate” the sport: I want to leave a legacy for English cricket in that we have improved it, made it more accessible, and more user-friendly … in the past we have had all these different reviews looking at various aspects such as the...
Another Win For England’s T20 Team. Another Defeat For The Test Side.
I was hoping to bring you more good news today. England’s T20 cricketers started their series against New Zealand with a win. However, then I read some off-field news that rather knocked the stuffing out of me. Yes it’s another blow to first class cricket in our country. Let’s deal with the good news first. England won comfortably at Christchurch’s beautiful Hagley Oval overnight. It’s always nice to watch cricket at such a picturesque ground (even if it was only...
Duffle Coats At The Ready: The 2020 Championship Fixtures
We knew it was coming but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. The county championship fixtures for 2020 will be released shortly and, according to the Daily Mail, the season is due to finish ‘just hours shy’ of October. Get your warm coats, hip flasks, and thermal underwear ready folks. The big loser in all this, of course, is the county championship and supporters of red ball cricket. With Harrison’s Harebrained Have A Hit scheduled to run from 17th July (the day...
Raising The Standard? The Hundred Overseas Players Myth
You’ve heard the hype. You can’t ignore it when it’s rammed down your throat 24/7. But will the Hundred really bring together the best cricketing talent ever assembled on these shores? Let’s have a look at the Hundred overseas players selected in the draft and work it out. So who are the big names? We’ve got Rashid Khan, Dre Russell, David Warner, Mitchell Starc, Steve Smith, Glen Maxwell, Mohammad Amir, and Kane Williamson. We’ll get to the other overseas...
Evasion and Disingenuity: The ECB At The DCMS Committee
I really wanted to go in person. I even toyed with the idea of turning up in full cricket kit or a cookie monster costume. But I hurt my foot on Tuesday so had to make do with the live stream on the parliament website. It was a fascinating three and a half hours as the DCMS committee grilled Colin Graves and Tom Harrison about their (mis)management of English cricket and their controversial new Hundred tournament. Although it could’ve been a lot worse for the ECB had the Department of...
From The Other Side Of The Hundred Divide
We can’t call TFT a broad church, or even a proper forum for discussion, unless we hear the other side of the argument from time to time. I’ve been boring everyone with my monologues against The Hundred for months. So now it’s time for me to shut up and let someone else put a more positive spin on the competition. Here’s Alex. Be gentle. Or not. He can take it … There has been a rage building in Britain. People are demonstrating. The press are spitting bullets...
