Gimmicks alone will not make the Hundred a hit
➤Best players in world and a hot summer will fill seats rather than consultants changing the terminology
Ilike change in cricket, but saying “outs” instead of “wickets” makes the Hundred look even more gimmicky than it already is. The England and Wales Cricket Board has to remember the tournament is first and foremost about cricket.
The Hundred will only be a success if the cricket played is of a high standard. It will be a success if the players buy into it. It will be a success if we see amazing sporting drama from Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Jofra Archer.
Changing terminology will not make the Hundred a success. That will be down to the players and the sun shining.
The matches are affordable and if we have a nice summer, then people will fancy nipping down to the Oval or Headingley to watch it.
Mainly it will be existing fans who will buy tickets this year. There is no way the ECB is going to attract a new audience in the first year.
Some people who do not know anything about cricket may be persuaded to go along with friends who already like the sport, but mainly it will be the same people who buy Test match tickets or go to Blast games who fill the grounds, so cricket has to be careful not to alienate them too much by changing too many things for the sake of it and risk it becoming a laughing stock, because I think inadvertently they have stumbled across the right tournament.
One hundred balls is right. Twenty20 has become too long. It was a three-hour game, now it takes four hours. There are so many time-outs, reviews, delays in tactics, everything is slowed down, but 100 balls should make it a three-hour game, taking it back to what T20 used to be when it first came along, which is great.
It is also only eight teams and so should be the best versus the best, which is what makes the Hundred potentially a high-quality project.
I backed an eight-team citybased tournament and felt we should have one in this country to rival the Indian Premier League. I wanted a T20 city-based competition, but I understand why they had to make it different from the county Blast tournament.
But what they do not need to do is increase the division in the game the tournament has already caused. I am not fussed about traditionalists saying they are not going to watch the competition. I have no problem with people saying they cannot affiliate with the teams, because there will be enough people who will buy into them.
I can understand batsmen changing to batters in this era, but I do not really get wickets to outs. That just looks like change for change’s sake.
It is always concerning, in all aspects of life, when you get consultants involved. They just want to change things. They have to justify their fees. It is rare a business pays a consultant to advise them to keep the status quo.
The IPL is such a massive product because of the players’ salaries. It makes it very special when you see someone such as Chris Morris going for $2.2million (£1.6million) and we all wait to see if he can cope with the pressure.
The money spent on consultancy fees for the Hundred would have been better off going on player salaries, so having a Virat Kohli or David Warner on £1million. That is what would make the Hundred stand out.
Yes, £125,000 for six weeks’ work is a lot of money in the real world, but in the context of these tournaments it is not. When you can get $2.2million to play in the IPL for eight weeks and £50,000 for playing in the Hundred for four weeks, it is small fry.
As commentators, we have not been told yet what we can or cannot say by the BBC. We have not been given a manual, so we will have to wait and see, but it will be hard not to make slip-ups. It is natural to say wickets rather than outs or batsmen instead of batters.
The reaction has been damning from some, but the ECB should be happy. If the adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity is true, then it is great the Hundred is being talked about, is on the front pages of newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph and leading radio sports bulletins.
Stokes played his first game on Monday in the IPL season, but everyone was talking about the Hundred instead.
My only worry is, what next? Will cow corner be banned so as not to upset vegans?