Beeb raises bat for maiden Hundred
AIt has been better than expected. But that is not saying much, given its bungled launch
n entire Saturday afternoon and early evening of cricket on BBC television; and it began with the following comfortingly familiar piece of information: “The good news here from Lord’s is that we had a bit of drizzle earlier but we are due to start on time.”
An immediate time machine for older viewers to the days of Tony Lewis, and although it is hard to imagine AR Lewis of Glamorgan and England sporting the silver parachute trousers of his BBC presentational successor Isa Guha, a reminder that no matter what bastardisations inflicted upon it, cricket in this country operates under the same few nonnegotiables it always has done. The weather is often poor, there is no substitute for a close contest, and there are periods when the TV coverage will have to fill in for rain, light, and times where not a lot is happening on the field.
Neither the men’s nor women’s Hundred final was able to deliver much of a match in terms of sporting excitement. In both contests, the side batting second were never seriously in it as the replies limped to a close with the chasers 32 and 48 runs short respectively.
Whether that matters is hard to judge right away. Would a brace of thrillers have converted more agnostics flicking through the TV channels on a drizzly Saturday in August? Perhaps, but no cricket match can guarantee a result, other than the ones those clever bookmakers in the Far East take such an interest in.
And as for the levels of cricket, this column will leave the question of the standard of the women’s game to the experts – actual and self-appointed – and note only that the evidence of one’s own eyes suggests professionalism is raising the bar apace. As to the men’s game, the number of franchises seems about right without diluting the talent pool too much.
To address the Hundred as an entertainment spectacle is an easier task: cricket fans in this country have clamoured for years that we want the sport back on terrestrial TV, and by putting 7½ hours of it on BBC2 on a Saturday, the England and Wales Cricket Board has belatedly delivered.
As a competition, the Hundred has been better than anyone dared to hope, although that is not saying much, given the bungled launch.
Correctly, the broadcasts on
Saturday, particularly the women’s event, were packaged as a family entertainment product. A battery of children’s TV types and excitable young people with microphones vox-popped kids in the crowd, and grabbed cricketers for a chat. Everyone universally agreed that everything was amazing and brilliant, be it the day out, the entertainment, the batting, the progress being made by women’s cricket.
As Anya Shrubsole began proceedings with her hooping medium-paced inswingers through the smoke that lingered in the murky Lord’s air from the prematch fireworks, one could not help be reminded of Ian “Bully” Austin at the 1999 World Cup opening match on this ground. This was a better TV day than that.
The much-vaunted innovations of the Hundred have, as it turns out, been the weakest bits of it. Few bowlers have opted to send down the 10 balls in a row that they are permitted to, meaning that it is effectively a contest of 20 overs (sound familiar?), except with five deliveries per set. This has not increased the pace of matches significantly.
The commentators’ cheerleading along with an exaggeration of the quality and/or drama on screen would have irritated some viewers on Saturday; but this is a by-product of having everyone involved – onpitch and on-microphone – willing the enterprise to be a commercial success.
A third division pop singer doing a turn to an uninterested crowd between breaks at a third-full cricket ground in the drizzle is not the greatest show on earth, no matter how much the organisers wish it so, but cricket back on the BBC is what we wanted, and that is what we got.