WISDEN WALLOPS HUNDRED
Cricket’s bible can’t see need for ECB’s new format
The latest edition of the
Wisden Almanack, known as cricket’s bible for its equal measure of reflection and instruction, damns the eCB’s introduction of The hundred as a fourth format from 2020.
In his editor’s notes for the world’s most famous sporting annual — which names Virat Kohli, Jos Buttler, Tammy Beaumont, Rory Burns and Sam Curran as its five cricketers of the year — Sportsmail’s Lawrence Booth questions the need for it and the impact it will have on english cricket’s cluttered landscape.
Booth wrote: ‘It is hard to be sanguine about stuffing another quart into the pint pot. even if The hundred succeeds — and the early signs were not good, with projected audiences of around 12,000 in stadiums capable of holding twice as many — then what of the other formats?
‘Twenty20 will take a hit, years after the world agreed it was the way ahead. The 50-over competition, its fixtures clashing with the new tournament, will smack of the Second XI, just when england have become good at one-day cricket. And the Championship will be shoved deeper into the cupboard under the stairs.
‘Then there’s the growing divide between the eight counties who will stage the competition and the 10 who won’t. Worcestershire’s Daryl Mitchell, who doubles as chairman of the Professional Cricketers’ Association, spoke for many: “If it doesn’t work, then we’re all in trouble”.
‘If only someone at the eCB had been on hand last year to explain why they thought it a good idea to stake cricket’s wellbeing on a form of the game played nowhere else in the world. It’s true that this approach worked in 2003, when Twenty20’s arrival met with scepticism. Yet these grand schemes come off once a generation. And the public have to be convinced over time, not drip-fed careless soundbites.’
Also a target for criticism was england’s batting in Test cricket. ‘Their openers were once the envy of the world; gutsy, stoical, pragmatic, they may even have embodied a certain Britishness. Now, it’s a pleasant surprise when one survives until lunch.’
The lament also took in the dearth of alternatives: ‘It is not easy to see what can be done while the domestic schedule treats four-day cricket as an inconvenience. And if the bowlers are handed a lively batch of Dukes balls, as they have been over the past two summers, the carnage will continue,’ Booth wrote.
In tribute to the internationally-retired Sir Alastair Cook, who put down his bat after a fairytale finale versus India at the Oval last September, Booth said for mental strength he had no equal among england players: ‘even his parting shot — 71 and 147 against the world’s No 1 side — required him to rediscover the edge he said had deserted him. We shouldn’t have been surprised.’
On punishments for transgressors, there was little sympathy for Steve Smith (below), David Warner and Cameron Bancroft following the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa last spring. And the decision at a disrepute charge hearing last December not to further sideline Ben Stokes, following his Bristol street brawl in 2017, was deemed proportionate.
Of Sandpapergate: ‘ Australia had been undone by the hubris-nemesis one-two, which has kept playwrights in business since Ancient Greece. This wasn’t just english tittering: many of their compatriots were sick of them too. To cheat so brazenly confirmed a widely held suspicion: Australia believed they were above the law.’ And of Stokes: ‘Yes, the fight was ugly — but further punishment, beyond the £30,000 fine imposed by the Cricket Discipline Commission, would have been excessive.’
Wisden, published for the 156th time today, named India captain Kohli as the best men’s cricketer in the world for an unprecedented third year in a row while acknowledging his compatriot Smriti Mandhana as the leading
women’s player.