I’ll be happy if grounds are 60% full for Hundred
ECB CHIEF SETS SIGHTS LOW FOR CONTROVERSIAL NEW COMPETITION
CoLIn GRAVeS is not a man given to self- doubt, which may explain why he gets so much done. overlooking a temporary building site at Lord’s due to the redevelopment of the nursery end, the eCB chairman is quick to trumpet the achievements of his controversial four-year reign, which traditionalists fear could leave our national summer sport resembling the rubble occupying the site of the Compton and edrich Stands.
Graves does not see it that way, of course. The 71-year-old’s love for cricket was forged during Yorkshire’s golden age that delivered seven County Championships in 10 years between 1959 and 1968, but he will be remembered for his role in creating the new Hundred format, which will launch next year amid concern it could destroy the long-form competition established in 1890.
It seems fitting, then, that in conversational terms Graves is not afraid to play his shots, producing the flashing blade of a Jonny Bairstow rather than the straight bat of his schoolboy idol and long-term friend, Sir Geoffrey Boycott.
over an hour of quickfire chat — long enough for a completed Hundred innings — Graves (right) holds forth on a variety of subjects: the need to reform the World Test Championship after four months, the danger of some countries walking away from Test cricket, and a strong call for a tougher line on players taking recreational drugs.
Plus, of course, highlighting what has been achieved on his watch. Since his appointment in 2015, england have won men’s and women’s World Cups, eCB revenues have more than doubled to £280million and there have been major governance reforms including the creation of an independent board and a new Professional Game Group to run the county game. But all those successes pale compared to the storm caused by the Hundred.
Graves concedes he will be judged ultimately by the impact of the competition, but simply refuses to accept that creating eight new teams in a sporting culture with little history of franchises, and launching a tournament with different rules into an already cluttered schedule, is a gamble.
In the eyes of the businessman who made almost £100m from the Costcutter supermarket chain, the ends justify the means — in this case the record £1.1billion television deal which the tournament helped eCB chief executive Tom Harrison to secure from Sky Sports and the BBC.
In this context the nuances of the Hundred’s potential unintended conse - quences, such as the possibility of the 10 smaller counties who will not host matches being sidelined, the downgrading of the 50- over format in which england are dual world champions and the continued trend of Championship cricket being moved to the fringes of the season, do not appear to be up for discussion. ‘People will judge me on how it works, but I believe the Hundred will be a fantastic success,’ Graves says. ‘I don’t see a risk. How can it be a risk when you have the money banked from the broadcasters for five years?’
Interestingly, given the ambitions for a format the eCB are hoping to monetise further by selling to other boards around the world, initial attendance targets for the Hundred appear modest.
With just 32 group games in total, Graves says the eCB are budgeting for an occupancy rate of between 60 and 65 per cent across the eight venues, and even that may prove a stretch in Cardiff and Southampton, who host the Welsh Fire and Southern Brave sides respectively.
‘At some of the grounds we might have to work harder but 60-65 per cent is what we are starting off with,’ Graves says. ‘If we get above that it will be a success.’ Graves is less convinced that the nascent Word Test Championship will prove successful in its current form and is calling for changes just four months after its launch, although he remains strongly supportive of the concept. With all series given equal weight, a Test victory in a five-match series such as the Ashes is currently
worth fewer points than India beating Bangladesh, for example, an anomaly which could incentivise boards to schedule shorter series.
This jars with attempts to protect the longest format.
Such is the fragile state of the Test game that Graves has concerns some countries may stop playing it altogether.
‘It might change as it goes along but at least we have a format,’ he says. ‘What it looks like in two or three years, I don’t know. I think some countries might fall off.
‘It is down to the ICC to protect Test cricket. The worrying thing is you look at Test cricket around the world and most of the grounds are empty and that is the sad bit. Fortunately we don’t see that in england.’ FOR all the furore surrounding the Hundred, it is broadcast rights for england matches that really underpin eCB revenues and are responsible for the majority of that record £1.1bn TV deal, as Graves makes clear.
The success of screening the World Cup final on free-to-air television last summer has led to calls for some england Tests to be on terrestrial TV.
But Graves has a stark warning. ‘one of the first things I said as chairman was we want cricket back on terrestrial television,’ he says. ‘ And we have done it. As well as the Hundred next year we have international men’s and women’s T20 cricket on the BBC. But Test cricket on terrestrial television is a different ball game.
‘If you talk to broadcasters, none of them want it. It does not fit into their schedules. Can I ever see Test cricket being on free-toair television? no I can’t.’
Graves is equally forthright on the need to tighten policy around players failing recreational drugs tests following Alex Hales’ positive test earlier this year.
The nottinghamshire batsman was eventually dropped from england’s World Cup squad as a result, but the management and his county were only told about the issue after his second failed test due to a confidentiality policy agreed with the Professional Cricketers’ Association, which Graves believes should change.
‘It was a situation we could have done without, but the policy had been agreed for five or six years,’ he says. ‘It’s wrong. If anyone tests positive for a banned substance, both their county and the eCB should know straight away after the first test. If you don’t you’re in the wilderness.’
The only time Graves clams up is when asked about plans for his own future after leaving the eCB, which he will do belatedly next year after being given a one-year extension by the board to preside over the first season of the Hundred.
Whatever his intentions, there seems little prospect of him slipping off quietly into the sunset.