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ECB under pressure to cut Hundred window as counties fight back
Hundred may be handed over to PGB that would see tournament link up with other competitions and potentially facilitate shortening the window
By Nick Hoult
The England & Wales Cricket Board is under pressure to shorten the window for the Hundred as counties fight back against changes to the domestic schedule.
Lancashire, Surrey and Glamorgan are three clubs who have told members over the past week that they would like to see the Hundred window cut from four weeks to help ease scheduling crisis.
All three counties host Hundred teams and their views are broadly replicated across the domestic game.
Telegraph Sport also understands there is a strong possibility the Hundred will come under the auspices of the Professional Game Board, an arm of the ECB that runs domestic competitions and is led by a selected group of county chief executives.
The Hundred was set up with a separate board and as a completely different entity to the county competitions. By giving the PGB control it will link up the Hundred with other competitions, decentralise the tournament and potentially facilitate shortening the window if the counties get their way.
Rob Key, the England director of cricket, urged the counties to get behind the Hundred in an interview with Telegraph Sport during which he also became the first senior ECB figure to publicly concede the proposals put forward by Sir Andrew Strauss’s High Performance Review had failed to gain support.
It is understood those proposals – which included cutting the championship to 10 matches with a top division of six and reducing the Blast from 14 to 10 games – are dead in the water and discussions on a compromise are unlikely to be resolved this year.
The Hundred has been sold to broadcasters until 2028 and will be held during a four-week window in August.
To cut the length of their new tournament would see the ECB buck trends for national governing bodies, who across the world are putting their muscle behind Twenty20 leagues. The Big Bash and IPL have both expanded in recent years and 2023 will see the launch of T20 leagues in South Africa, the UAE and the United States.
The ECB’s ultimate ambition is to attract private financial investment in the Hundred, something Richard Thompson, the board’s new chairman, has admitted publicly as the logical next step.
Shortening the window would send the wrong message to potential investors because it would suggest the board is not fully convinced its own competition is working, however it would be an olive branch for the counties to put before members incensed by moves to cut the championship.
Walking into this is the new chief executive of the ECB with an appointment imminent. Final interviews with Richard Gould and Tim Bostock took place on Wednesday and repairing relationships and rebuilding trust with the counties will be the first task of the successful candidate.
But they will also have to solve the domestic schedule, restructure the ECB and its finances and decide what to do with the Hundred going forward – does it remain in the form it is now, monetised differently or sold off to private investment.
There is also the ECB's place at the top table of international cricket and how it combats the rise of rival leagues around the world to deal with too.
Reducing the window to 21 days for the Hundred could be achieved by playing more double headers, which would then give a little bit more time for the championship but it will prove a difficult negotiation with Sky and the BBC, who have paid for Hundred rights and want a tournament with mainly one match per day because they believe it helps build a narrative.
One compromise put forward is to cut the championship to 12 matches and played across three divisions with a top flight of six teams.
Not sure about that last bitm if they gain an extra week by reducing the time the 100 takes up AND they have fixed rest weeks instead of staggered rest weeks then SURELY there's no need to reduce the number of championship matches. Which is what we all want. 14 WAS, IS and SHOULD REMAIN the compromise
Correct those alterations to the points system have evolved organically over time and with the spectator in mind. This current proposal seems far too top down in approach. Seeking to make things look to the casual observer neater and tidier but actually may have the effect of making county championship matches less attractive to watch.
Of course the top down approach is why they're even having this panicky HPR after an Ashes thrashing down under. I hope one of the compromises remains rejecting the HPR proposals that seek to reduce CC matches or make the games less appealing to watch or certain counties even less viable.
If Warwicks board don't have that as an option for the members next week it'll be a complete waste of time even having the forum. It'll demonstrate yet again that they haven't been listening to members concerns whatsoever
Quick overview of Glamorgan Members HPR meeting tonight. (Tuesday night)
Members not in favour of CC reduction in games. Preference for Two divisions 8-10, 2 up, 2 down. Need more info re: possible changes to points scoring system.
RL and T20 - remain as now.
Hundred - compress playing period to permit some CC cricket in August.
Chair has also garnered opinions of players, coaches and the board. Will pull together an official response. Counties likely to vote in November. Middlesex Chair appears to be collating responses at present.
Glamorgan has fed back to Surrey's chairman while Lancs have fed back their members views with Warwicks. These sub groups will then formulate a response to the ECB and possible compromise position re: shortened 100 etc...
The points changes mooted have so far been overlooked. I'm glad it was raised by the Glamorgan members as I and others on here have reservations about proposed changes
Another wonderful piece from Paul Edwards this morning;
PAUL EDWARDS addresses the key figures at the top of county cricket, thanking them for their service, appealing for unity amid the high-performance reviews and asking for the concerns of players to be accounted for
Please excuse me but can you give me a little of your time? Maybe not, you're all busy people and you're coming towards the end of discussions that could hardly be more important for the future of the game we all love. But if you can spare me 10 minutes, I'll try not to waste them. That being understood, let's not hang about.
The first thing I'll say is 'thank you'. All of you render cricket a service and there must be days on which your only reward is to be pulled in six directions at once while receiving criticism, if not abuse, from the people you're trying to serve. I'm not blowing smoke up your arses here, this isn't empty flattery. The vast majority of you care just as much about cricket as your members and some of you could earn more money elsewhere. Yet you give your time to your counties and to English and Welsh cricket. I'm grateful.
My own season ended just over a fortnight ago at Worcester. Over the preceding six months I'd watched so much fine cricket in both divisions that any sadness had to be balanced against deep appreciation of the players who had enriched my summer: players like Anuj Dal and Ben Geddes; Ali Orr and Jack Brooks; George Lavelle and John Simpson; Ben Compton and Liam Patterson-White; Gareth Roderick and Fin Bean. Yes, I get about a bit; yes, I'm very lucky.
I haven't missed a round of the LV= Insurance County Championship for five years. That was why I volunteered to serve on the high-performance review back in April. I didn't for a moment think my offer would be accepted but I reckoned one ought to show willing.
Cynical friends suggested that actually watching so much county cricket disqualified me but I thought that was a cheap shot and we've had far too many of those. Indeed, while there was so much to enjoy this summer, my pleasure was sometimes tainted by the acrimony of a debate that frequently became little more than a slanging match. At some point in the recent past, we've lost the precious art of listening to each other, but that isn't confined to sport.
So let's put the bitterness aside. Let me be plain that I do not wish to abolish The Hundred and I fully appreciate its extraordinary impact on women's cricket. Some of the new teams have attracted many new and often young supporters to cricket and it would be wrong of me to deny them their fun. They are part of the game's future.
But to discuss the structure of the domestic game without allowing The Hundred to be part of the debate devalues the exercise and might tempt you towards unnecessary conclusions.
That's especially so when one considers that by playing two matches on one day more frequently, time could be freed up for Championship cricket in August. That could require the broadcasters to be understanding but I assume they care about the game, too. And it would at least increase the chances of there being some live cricket on the box when the weather is unsettled.
I am not a traditionalist, though. Although the past informs, enriches and to some extent determines the present, it cannot of itself justify policy. My strong commitment to a meaningful County Championship comprising 14 games – there, I've said it – stems more from the belief that such a competition provides a proper test of professional county cricketers and that such a programme is not only feasible but also desirable, given the eccentricities of the English climate.
More to the point, I reckon the majority of the players want the 14-match Championship to be retained. Their objections to the current situation centre far more on the concentration of matches in a brief period – six or seven in as many weeks this April and May – as on the volume of cricket they are asked to undertake in six months.
That, of course, seems to be at variance with the view of the Professional Cricketers Association that "the players want to play less cricket", words often used by Sir Andrew Strauss when launching the review.
I'd like to put some courteous factual questions to the PCA: Precisely when were the players polled? What were they asked? What percentage of current professionals replied? What percentage of those who replied wanted to play less? Who were the independent auditors for the whole process?
My point is if the players were asked during the most gruelling part of the season, the results might be particularly misleading, not that I would ever accuse the PCA of doing so deliberately. But I get to talk to a lot of professional cricketers and I believe their views are far more nuanced than we have been led to believe.
And I'm sure you'll have considered the British climate. The subject mocks easy generalisation, of course, but the evidence from recent seasons suggests that April and particularly September are becoming far more suitable for professional cricket than perhaps they used to be.
The pitches are a little slower in April and 10.30am starts in September test batters in different ways but isn't that a counter-balance to the flatter wickets on which we play in June, July and, I hope, August? Surely being tested in a variety of conditions is a central component of any young cricketer's development. And I certainly agree with many county pros that we could play on into the first few days of October and maybe that would allow another round of Championship matches to be fitted in.
The impact of climate change is rarely so beneficial, though, and I hope the whole process is reversed as soon as possible. When torrential midsummer rain arrives, it frequently wipes out two or three days of a first-class game and this season's exceptional weather merely shows how erratic our climate has become. As a general rule, I reckon that each county can expect to have a couple of four-day games badly affected by the weather. It's worth considering when you are thinking about the amount of cricket we play.
That's almost all I wanted to say. I know this column hasn't mentioned the Blast, which I enjoy, or the Royal London, which I like even more, but you have given me enough of your time.
The easy assumptions about the County Championship are that it's gentle, soft and undemanding; one of summer's many pastorals; appealing to the spectator but of limited value to the selector; July's picture in a calendar entitled The English Scene.
Well, it is often beautiful, of course, but anyone who doubts its intensity has probably not watched much of it. It remains the prize that matters most to the players – and you are its principal guardians. Moreover, you are also, in part, the guardians of all the very young cricketers – you've not yet heard of them – who rock up at their first county trials with dreams of playing Ashes Tests still fresh in their minds.
I hope your deliberations go well this week. Don't be scared of taking time to reach the best conclusions. We waited until last January for the first-class fixture this year and everyone coped. It's vital to get things right because while you all know that your clubs’ core responsibilities include the development of England players, they also extend far beyond that role.
The counties are the engines by which inclusion and diversity can be implemented. Isn't it sad that one or two middle-ranking people at the ECB would like to get rid of them? So to adapt Benjamin Franklin's saying, it's important that you hang together or assuredly, you will hang separately.
But that's a gloomy thought on which to end. Much better, as long as you're not from Yorkshire or Hampshire, to remember Liam Norwell pounding in on the last day of the season with no greater prize on offer than his team's survival in Division One of the County Championship. Such things still matter to the players and I know they matter to you, too.
Thanks for reading and winter well,
Agreed Gerry. Some hope exists and some breaking news from the Surrey forum which took place this morning...
Steve Elworthy was asked...
How much dialogue is taking place with other counties? Can counties can agree to reschedule the 100?
SE in response suggested there was "huge dialogue going on. 4 to 5 meeting this afternoon. Conversations about reducing Hundred to 21 days is happening."
This squares with information from the Lancs forum and correspondence I've had since. What this shrinkage would do is make it easy to retain 14 CC matches AND crucially for the smaller counties 14 Blast group matches
Think that's a bit harsh personally. He was messed about as much as anyone last season. They tried him as a three to bring in Davies to open with Sibley I'm guessing with the intention of increasing our run rate early in the innings. Davies and Sibley kept getting out and Yates did struggle in the three slot. Hain coming in at four is 4-5 years ahead of Yates in experience.
Yates caught the eye of England selection in 2021 so there's no way Bears were gonna let him go after one lousy season. I'm actually glad they don't chop players on this basis. Yates has potential to improve and go on to plough big runs in first class cricket and still has time on his side for higher recognition potentially.
For all the gnashing of teeth over Matt Lamb let's be fair he's just had a decent first half to two thirds of one season after not exactly pulling up any trees prior to or during Covid and I'd have kept him too but his potential isn't the same.
I think it's quite likely Lamb's situation is a victim of the schedule in recent seasons being such a dogs dinner. Had we an appointment to view schedule going forwards (with ideally IMHO Friday T20 and 16 championship games starting on Sunday's) as a squad player he'd be invaluable. The chunking up of the season into blocks and the recruitment of all these T20 specialists means for Lamb, given his relatively limited potential compared to some of the other youngsters and him not being a slip catcher of any note nor much of a bowler makes his retention a bit of a 50/50 punt.
I'd still have kept him but can sort of understand the need to trim the squad means sometimes half-decent middle order batters (with few other strings to their bow) or basically squad players have to reluctantly be let go. Good luck to the lad at Derby and to Adam Hose (who might consider himself equally unfortunate) at Worcestershire
Certainly don't buy the Lancs line that the SGM costs them any more than a binding vote would.
The board there do have issues with trust
And what will a binding vote entail exactly?
Vote X 10 CC matches and 14 Blast matches
Vote Y 12 CC matches and 12 Blast matches
Vote Z 14 CC matches and 10 Blast matches
Something along those lines when what members could well insist on is retention of 14 CC and 14 Blast matches to show solidarity with the Worcestershire's and Sussex's
What I think Lancs members fear is there will only be option X or Y.
Or perhaps option X - yay or nay?
No change to the volume has to remain on the table with an insistence on the schedule being sorted so there are games for all the counties throughout June July and August as opposed to the huge gaps we've had to put up with - some counties worse affected than others in 2021+2022
Vote A 14 CC matches and 14 Blast matches (but get the blinking schedule sorted out)
Annie Chave posted this on the Somerset Facebook page yesterday
"Hello All
Just to say on the back of the forum last night - I'm afraid I wasn't able to be there but I did meet with Gordon Hollins during the day along with Mike Unwin, Chris Winkleigh (apologies Chris I know I've got your surname a bit wrong) and Alan Higham to discuss the High Performance Review and we had a three hour meeting where we looked at the proposals as a whole. There are many aspects of the review that need to be looked at and Gordon was very definite that the Somerset CCC Board would not be agreeing with ANY proposals until the ECB had looked at the Somerset response and agreed to their points.
We will be meeting again in November to talk again about Members & fans concerns and so do get in touch with me if you have anything specific or if you're just worried or want to let off steam.
It is an incredibly frustrating time to be a County Cricket Fan at the moment and the delay in any decision making is very hard for the counties to get on and sell membership or make informed decisions but it's important we feel that we are aiming for the same score and I'm really really trying to ensure that we are keeping Winviz 50/50% and our projected score is heading for that tie...."
They may not have won the vote but that will have been mainly down to Lancs CCC throwing the kitchen sink at defeating it. What they have done however is help open up a few eyes to what they're after and their members (rather condescendingly described by the club as "small but significant") were right to call the SGM in the circumstances as information was far from forthcoming in August. They've also helped awaken members at other counties and wangled us an extra year - if nothing else - so well done Alan and the volunteers.
If I'm reading it right in an ideal world what the board of Lancashire County Cricket Club would prefer is one division of 12 or 13 (or perhaps 14?) counties playing each other once per season with no relegation or promotion. This would necessitate demoting 3 or 4 counties to minor county status forevermore.
They don't like small divisions of six
They don't like playing some teams more than once but other teams only once
They don't think smaller counties should have any say in the matter
They don't think they should ever be relegated
Yet they somehow agree with the warped view of the ECB report that there's somehow too much cricket presumably so they can fit more concerts in at Old Trafford and more slogball too
It might be what many of the supposed bigger counties are after at the end of the day.
Getting far too big for their boots at Old Trafford especially considering they've won precisely 1 county championship title in close on 90 years
It's not just Lancs however. This'll likely reflect how other so called big counties think
14 games CAN fit into the 5 months outside the 100 window they just won't admit it and they keep inventing stumbling blocks. It is is pure deflection tactics
The 100 can be played with CC alongside it. I'd actually prefer this and in the light of this there ought to be efforts made to increase the CC back up to 16 games if this is the case not reduce it to a shrunken disheveled status
Where there's a will there's a way. They just want to shrink the game and it needs opposing still
A shame for those in Melbourne that for a second week running heavy rain put paid to the entire schedule. There was a photo I saw of Essendon CCs ground completely flooded
George Garrett's had an impressive debut overnight. Came on first change and removed both openers - caught third slip with one that extracted a bit of extra bounce and caught second slip in that corridor of uncertainty area. Figures of 2-5 off 4 overs at one stage. Fair play to the lad
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LTCPIvmbljE
And Jacob Bethell has been playing for Sydney CC overnight in their away match at Bankstown
Duplicate post
Lancashire had their SGM during the week and Somerset had a forum
Lancs appear to be committed to preserving 14 FC games in the season and will push for some CC cricket in August to facilitate this. They are deeply opposed to the idea of a tiny top tier of just six teams. At one point they mentioned a 12 team division as being their preference but I can't see how that would work. Like Warwickshire they are not too fussed if a couple of T20 Blast games were cut from the schedule.
Somerset's forum suggested they are angling for a 100 franchise to be hosted at Taunton so at least they get to cash in on some of that while it exists. I personally cannot see the other counties agreeing to expand it as it generally flopped ratings wise last year. They are looking at ideas to have some CC cricket on during the Hundred - THIS IS POSITIVE NEWS as it would be less pressing to cut fixtures.
I saw some some interesting comments about only having six teams in the top division;
One thing I have grave reservations about is how a six-team top division is going to help England's cause.
It was mentioned on the Northants - Essex commentary yesterday that when there was an 8-team top division it was intensely competitive. Yet this has actually since gone up to 10, presumably to reduce the risk of "big" counties going down to Division 2.
It's obvious that with only room for 6 clubs in the top division, that risk of not being in it will increase substantially. The basic maths is that 12 teams won't be in that league.
One might say that the likes of Lancashire, Surrey and Yorkshire are the core resource when it comes to producing England players. But what if, rather than the assumption that it will be the likes of Leicestershire "marooned" in the feeder divisions, it is those big clubs? Let's face it, all 3 have spent time in Division 2 before, so it's far from a given that they will stay in a top division of 6. And once out, it could take years to get back in, especially if all 3 ended up down there.
On top of this, you then also have the other side of the coin, that the big clubs are by no means the sole providers of England players - far from it. As things stand, there is sufficient incentive for all the county clubs to try and get into Division 1, which means they build stronger sides. But with the proposed set-up, it may be that more clubs "do a Leicestershire" and privately admit that they will give-up on trying to build red-ball team capable of challenging for the top flight.
These combined effects could actually end up seeing the supplies to the England Test team worsening, not getting better.
Food for thought I reckon.
Totally agree. Gave the club the benefit of the doubt over recruitment of the overseas Nathan McAndrew this season but this makes far more sense all formats too but especially championship cricket he'll chip in in several ways.
May enable Will Rhodes to go back to opening if they're that way inclined as would ease his need for bowling
Great news about Hamza Shaikh who's spending "time in Mumbai, India during the winter where he’ll gain invaluable experience playing in different conditions and pitches plus, crucially, honing his skills against spin bowling"
Several Bears are overseas this winter a few we are aware of so far;
Jordan Bulpitt is over in Melbourne already and was selected for Kingston Hawthorn's two day fixture yesterday in the Victoria Premier League but unfortunately the entire round was rained off.
Ethan Brookes has also arrived in Melbourne to join up with Prahran CC
Rob Yates is heading over to Perth to play for Bayswater-Morley. They've had two rounds of
50-over matches already and switch to two day matches at the end of October. Henry Brookes spent a few months there the winter prior to Covid. Will Rhodes had two winters with Willetton just as he signed for Warwickshire from Yorkshire and before he took on the captaincy
The WACA Premier League is quite nice to follow as due to the time difference it's on in the mornings until about 11am on Saturdays/Sundays whereas the other grade cricket comps are all overnight.
George Garrett is heading over to Brisbane to play for Easts Redlands which is Marnus Labuschagne's club. The Queensland Grade cricket season begins a bit earlier in the year so they've played lots of T20 since August plus three 50-over games already and just completed their first 2-day match beating Toombul.
I know several other youngsters are over there or in South Africa so will keep an eye out for their performances
Excellent article. And delving into the archives here once again superb; https://edgbaston.com/news/liam-norwell-best-bowling-performance-ever-for-the-bears/
A play-off between the bottom two teams in division one will determine which county is relegated, while a play-off between the top two in division two will decide who goes up to the top flight.
???
What on earth is the sudden obsession with play offs all about???!!!? It'd represent yet another week in the schedule where 4 teams get to play while the other 14 are sat twiddling their thumbs. I'm guessing mid-September??? Or else played overseas??? And if they're drawn matches??? Ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous!!!
What we want is proper season long leagues and proper knockout cups like we had in the 1990's
According to the Leicestershire chairman speaking last night at their forum no date has been arranged for any vote.
Also aligning with the wishes of their members the Leicestershire chair and CEO have stated they will vote as follows;
No - to moving the RLODC to April
No - to the proposed schedule of fewer championship games
No - to reducing the 7 T20 blast home games they currently have
That is a county engaging with its membership fully. Leicestershire members were also very vocal about the need to resist any moves towards creating divisions of six. You can't have a county championship where 2/3rds of the counties are unable to win it.
The situation at Warwickshire is far from clear.
Members at the forum in September were unanimously opposed to reducing championship matches. Yet the club wishes to portray the members as being broadly aligned with the committee??? This appears to be not the case if the committee think 12 is any workable compromise. 14 was the compromise.
If Warwickshire decide to vote for reduced championship games they will do so against the clear wishes expressed by their membership
This needs clearing up
This is on the Worcestershire official website. Counties should reject these insidious moves to shrink opportunities in the English cricket summer. It's as true for the next Olly Hannon Dalby or Ed Barnard as it is for Masihullah Qazkhill
https://wccc.co.uk/from-afghanistan-to-astwood-bank-masih-finds-opportunity-in-worcestershire/
amid all the current debates about the future of the game, maybe it’s vital to note that while the responsibilities of county cricket clubs embrace the production of England players, those duties also extend far beyond that essential role. It is a simple truth that most professional cricketers will not wear the crown and three lions, yet they will still give essential service to the game in this country.
English cricket is not solely about the England team. Rather, it is about ensuring that age-group teams are properly financed and that no players of sufficient talent are left out of them. It is about turning the player pathways into broad highways on which male and female cricketers from any background feel comfortable. And it is about ensuring that the major competitions are valued for themselves as a stern but fair test of teams across the increasingly wide expanse of the season.