The simple beauty of the Hundred

Time to come clean: I really like the Hundred. This is the sort of view that normally makes people look at you as if you had just professed an admiration for Gary Glitter. But come on, this is a crisp little short-form cricket tournament, played out at the height of summer to largely packed houses. What really is not to like? Cricket is one of the few sports that works in different formats, so it beats me why the Hundred arouses such venom. It has done wonders for the women’s game, it doesn’t take long and it is all televised – much of it on terrestrial TV. Crucially, it has brought new fans to the sport, especially families and youngsters.

This year’s didn’t start too well: there were too many low–scoring matches and if a team are 70-odd for six off 75 balls, there’s not much doubt about the result in a 100-ball game. Big scoring matches were a rarity this edition, and the bowlers, especially pace bowlers, were usually on top. But even so the crowds were terrific, if slightly down on last year. In one remarkable game last week, Birmingham Phoenix, led by England’s Ben Duckett and Jamie Smith, hammered Manchester Originals in the tipping rain at Edgbaston, in a game reduced to 30 balls a side. What was striking is that thousands of fans braved the deluge to watch the last knockings.

At the same time the TV viewer could change channels and watch Test cricket in Guyana between the West Indies and South Africa, two of the biggest names in the game. It wasn’t a particularly interesting match, but there was almost literally no one in the ground. The attendance was pitiful. Test cricket, or at least vast swaths of it, appears to be in a death spiral, outside the big three of India, England and Australia.