How the Hundred could improve

Ten-ball sets would build pressure Gladiatorial duels are what crowds want,

Each 10-ball block has to be delivered by a single bowler

The Hundred needs to be simpler, quicker and far more dramatic

At the moment, after almost every block or set of five balls, one bowler is replaced by another.

Just as it is getting interesting and a pace bowler is under pressure, it is all change in the field, a flat off-spinner bowls a few darts and the tension is dissipated (with good reason, the five-ball over was binned in the 1890s).

The Hundred is all action and not enough drama. If one bowler, however, delivers every set of 10 balls, the tension builds, especially if the batsmen get after him. Under pressure, he bowls a wide and a no ball and suddenly the parameters of the game change: the batsmen can score 20, 30 or even 40 off one 10-ball block.

Hundred totals at present are poor man’s T20 totals, like 140 for seven. Make this simple rule change and they will escalate. If Liam Livingstone or Jason Roy takes down a bowler or two, the totals will reach 200, even 300.

This physical pressure and mental stress will be too much for some bowlers, but this is professional sport.

The best will improve, the worst will disappear.

The pace bowler will need a whole range of slower balls to get through his 10-ball set.

The spinner will have to turn it both ways: no more flat offies.

Then, for the first time in the game’s history, the bowler will perhaps become the most valuable player, even the most idolised and highest paid.

Make each set last 10 balls and you will have gladiatorial cricket, with no hiding place after five balls. Cricket at its most confrontational, even brutal. A series of 10 duels of 10 balls.

And after nobody has hit a century in the existing version, batsmen will be able to score a hundred in the Hundred.

Regional change

The number of teams does not have to be increased from eight: the talent is spread thinly enough as it is, although the standard should rise if Covid-19 restrictions ease. But the South West is completely excluded at present. Turn Welsh Fire – and it is not as if they have set Wales on fire – into Western Fire, playing at Cardiff, Bristol and perhaps Taunton.

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