Once again on The Hundred in cricket
I agree with Michael Henderson (New Statesman*) that The Hundred in cricket is an innovation that is not required not least because it risks undermining the perpetually fragile structure of County Cricket. That said having watched, virtually, a couple of trial games at Lords a few weeks back I was surprised by how similar it was to existing short forms of the game.
I suspect the real change will come, if it does, not so much in what happens on the pitch but off it, with entertainment packages. TV coverage- particularly free to air- is crucial of course, not least to try and interest younger people who otherwise might not come across cricket at all-although that in itself is a very mixed picture.
One senses the point of the specific structure of the 100 is to ensure the games actually finish to time. That has long since stopped happening in twenty over games. When limited over cricket was first introduced in the early 1960s the Gillette Cup was 60 overs a side. That would be a two day game nowadays.
*Michael Henderson is the author of That Will Be England Gone: The Last Summer of Cricket. It was an obituary for the England of County Cricket (& much else) as The Hundred was due to launch in 2020. It didn’t but is scheduled to in 2021. The piece I comment on appeared in the New Statesman (21st May). Unfortunately unless you have or have to access to a paper copy the NS’s on-line content is paywalled although you should be able to get free access to read Henderson’s Diary piece
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