The Hundred Draft: League of Gentlemen factor looms
I watched the Hundred Draft on Sky/BBC on Sunday evening.
For the unaware (I suspect most people)the 100 is a new 100 ball cricket competition launching in July 2020.
The cricket authorities think it will attract new spectators.
There are 8 teams which breaking with the traditional County structure of cricket are regionally based.
The Draft was about (sort of) bidding or more accurately, allocating, domestic and international players by price band to the 8 teams.
The Torygraph claimed it was a made for TV event that would have razzmatazz. It didn’t. It plodded over 3 hours and Jos Buttler was certainly right when he said he found it difficult to work out what was going on.
It probably didn’t matter since I doubt many, if any, of the new spectators it is supposed to be attracting were watching.
The wider issue is why anyone would want to watch it in person.
The 100 will be screened live on Sky and in some cases the BBC. It may well be a spectacle in the same way the Indian Premier League (IPL) or the Australian Big Bash is. They do get big audiences, including myself, particularly if they happen to be on TV after I return from the pub (in the evening)
Here however 8 teams with no local roots are being put in areas of England and Wales where support for cricket is locally based.
Is there a new layer of spectators apparently unaware of their local surroundings and area who will turn up to watch a team of assorted players? We’ll find out but one cant help think that local things for local people still matter a bit.
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