The Hundred: the reification of cricket
The Hundred 2022 concludes today and very shortly for the rest of September what many (myself included) regard as proper cricket.
Matches have been sold out with crowds building up during women’s matches which are played in the afternoon before the men’s game in the evening. The exception has been Cardiff partly because the misnamed Welsh Fire is anything but Welsh (& that point is not lost on cricket fans in Cardiff) and partly because its performance has been abysmal.
TV audiences on free to air BBC have declined by just under 20% compared to 2021. Put that down to glorious August weather and far too many one-sided games.
The Hundred continues to be good for the development of women’s cricket (not perhaps the first priority of the ECB) but that’s probably about it. The onward march of the T20 format backed by the IPL is making The Hundred swim even harder against the stream.
I have watched (or at least glanced at) most The Hundred games. There have been a few tight finishes but generally the 100 ball format as opposed to T20 (120) seems to make for one sided contests.
The game itself has been reified cricket. That is where there should be a living relationship and interaction (for example between bat and ball) what we get are objects to be desired and perhaps achieved. The six, the four, the run-out, the Yorker and the Googly this is what The Hundred has become.
The commentary on Sky underlines the point. I don’t like shouty commentators but I have at least come to understand that the archetypal shouty commentator Danny Morrison actually only shouts when there is something to shout about. On The Hundred shouts come at random as something does or does not happen.
The Hundred which was meant to be a gateway to introduce a new audience to cricket is in fact diverging from cricket altogether. In 2022 the more on message commentators have started calling the 5 ball overs ‘sets’ (one thinks of tennis) for no obvious reason. Overs don’t need to be 6 balls and historically they have been more or less.
In 2023 largely to do with Sky who have the majority broadcasting rights The Hundred will be the only cricket played in August. If it is to continue it needs a major revamp on the men’s side and more practical signs of how the more successful women’s game will lead to the further development of the game across other cricket formats.
The Hundred 2022 was a situation where the hype and the reality were far apart. That cant be sustained
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