ECB back Hundred with £40m budget
THE ECB are understood to have allocated a whopping £40million-a-year budget for their beleaguered Hundred competition.
That works out at well over £1m a day being spent on a 33-day tournament starting in 2020 for which the format is still being worked out and the eight teams a long way from being named.
The huge sum — with only 20 per cent due to go to the players — was revealed in a meeting between the organisers and county chiefs who had made numerous requests for more financial information about the Hundred.
The £40m budget, with a lot of it going on marketing and stage management, shows just how much the ECB are committed to making a success of the Hundred — the rules for which are seemingly being made up on the hoof.
Meanwhile, after the wholly inept way ECB chairman Colin Graves has handled the formation of the Hundred, it was apt that calamity Colin should drop a statuette of Warwickshire’s bear-and-ragged-staff when it was presented to him before the start of play at Edgbaston to mark England’s 1000th Test. AFTER the Eni Aluko/Mark Sampson saga and Phil Neville’s difficult introduction as the manager of England’s women, it was a certainty that a woman would be appointed his FA media spokesperson. Some strong male candidates for the role failed to even get an interview. But the FA have made an excellent choice in Wendy Taylor, who has the battle-hardened experience of eight years working inside Mike Ashley’s dysfunctional Newcastle United with numerous managers. SKY SporTS employ some of the best cricket analysts on any network, which makes the choice this summer of the useless Harbhajan Singh (right) all the more surprising. Spin bowler Harbhajan is so bad behind the mic, mainly due to his poor English, he has strong claims to be the worst pundit on any sport in recent times. Sky have tried to cover up his many shortcomings by putting him on air with two other commentators.
Meanwhile, the opening premier League match of the season a week tomorrow, Manchester United v Leicester City will be shown on entertainment channel Sky one, as well as Sky premier League and Sky Main Event. Some see this as a sign of Sky being worried about viewing figures at the start of the season, but Sky say they want to build on football’s feelgood factor from the World Cup. THE RFU’s redundancy programme casualties looks like including Rosie Williams, their head of rugby development. This is despite her high standing in the game and Twickenham’s commitment to gender equality, which included famously lecturing councillors about their unacceptable sexist attitude towards female staff. The changes to the development programme, with another respected executive Simon Winman also expected to leave, have infuriated counties who have grave fears about the future.