Hughes the pioneer?

WHO invented The Hundred as a competitive cricket format will become a point of contention similar to one about Twenty20, for which ex-ECB marketing manager Stuart Robertson gets most of the acclaim, although ECB director of cricket operations John Carr played a major role. Cricket pundit Simon Hughes, editor of the

Cricketer magazine, claimed yesterday that he had made a presentation to the ECB in 2015 that included a ‘100 Ball Challenge’.

Yet nobody could be found at the ECB yesterday with any recollection of Hughes’s proposals or presentation. The ECB give the credit for The Hundred to new competition managing director Sanjay Patel’s development team.

WEST BROMWICH, facing almost certain relegation to the Championship, must be sick of the FA and now the Premier League poaching their staff. There was much upset when the FA took former manager Roy Hodgson and current director of football Dan Ashworth in quick succession. Now the PL have poached Ashworth’s Albion successor Richard Garlick to fill a new role.