ECB back on defensive over the Hundred after rap concert photo gaffe
After months of bad PR for the Hundred, the ECB tried to get back on the front foot at Wednesday’s launch of the competition.
The chief executive, Tom Harrison, admitted the board had “definitely made mistakes in the buildup” but asked fans to remember “this is all about growing the game and giving more people the opportunity to be part of cricket”.
Unfortunately, there was another little hiccup when it turned out the image the ECB was using for branding was not from a match but was a stock photo apparently taken at a rap concert in Miami. Bizarrely, it then replaced it with another of some football fans.
The problem was that there are not any photos of Hundred fans yet, because the Hundred does not yet have any fans. It is supposed to appeal especially to “people who don’t know they are cricket fans”, which is fortunate, because it seems wildly unpopular with a lot of people who do. Harrison said: “I respect the fact there’s some pockets of resistance, that’s no surprise to any of us, it was the same when we launched T20 17 years ago, it was the same every time something has been done that disrupts cricket. But we will do everything we can to excite cricket fans about this. I think cricket fans are going to love it.”
The England director of cricket, Ashley Giles, explained it was not just about “what people want but what people need”.
The Hundred has been designed to be faster, simpler, and more exciting than T20 cricket, and is supposed to appeal in particular to families, children and the British South Asian community. Sanjay Patel, the managing director of the competition, promised the board had “over 100 million data points” to back it all up but said “we’re not going to share them”. Instead they offered lots of cherry-picked statistics, some of them readily available to anyone with access to Google.
The ECB is right that there is an opportunity. More could and should be done to make the game more appealing
to the groups they are targeting. The question is whether this is the best way to go about it. Certainly, it is good it will get the game back on free-to-air TV. The BBC will broadcast 11 matches. Not much but Patel rightly argues that being on the BBC will make the game part of the national conversation again. “It’s not just about the live games,” he said, “it’s about mobilising the BBC across everything they do, across all their channels, to bring the Hundred to life.”
Beyond that, there are questions about how it will dovetail with international cricket and domestic cricket. “From time to time there are going to be availability issues, because we’re going to be playing Test cricket through this window,” Harrison said. “Test players will be a part of the Hundred in some way.”
He added that while the T20 Blast “is doing an incredible job for our loyal fans we might have topped out that potential for growth, and we believe by doing this we have the ability to extend our fanbase.”
Ready or not, right or not, it all starts on 20 October, when the men’s player draft will take place live on TV.