Kmflett's Blog

England Test captain Joe Root at the crease, Sofia Gardens, Cardiff 12th August 2026

A Day at The Hundred

I doubt many, if any, perusing this are fans of The Hundred a brief now franchised 100 ball contest inserted into the cricket schedule in August. Most will prefer, as I do, the One Day Cup at this time of year.

Even so, and following Marx’s dictum that to understand capitalism you need to check out its new developments, I ventured to a Hundred match at Sofia Gardens in Cardiff with my ‘niece’ Menna on 13^th August. Menna btw is a nurse and has only recently developed an interest in cricket so this seemed like a good way to engage that.

It was of course very hot- 34C- but the attendance for the two games women’s and men’s was 10,288. Not bad for midweek, daytime cricket. It probably helped that of all the Hundred grounds Cardiff has held prices, so it was £20 a ticket.

The history of The Hundred of course was a desire by the ECB to take control of cricket from the Counties and monetise it. This over 5 years they have now done. Welsh Fire is now partly owned by a US Tech guy.

Aside from the political objection I found the promotion of The Hundred by Sky and the BBC to be way over the top. Of course they had paid to cover it and so wanted an audience.

Its true, although this was never the ECB’s intention, that it did  a lot with double header matches to promote women’s cricket. That is the one unqualified good.

It also introduced ‘tweaks’ such as five and ten ball ‘sets’ to be bowled and various others now forgotten. Indeed ‘sets’ have also been given a well deserved place in the dustbin of history. Overs is the term now used and for the hard core traditionalists, the six ball over was only codified in the Laws of Cricket in 1980. Before that it varied.

The crowd on Wednesday had some children (one of the big points ECB wise is that The Hundred introduces new people to cricket- up to a point, see above).

However the newly franchised Hundred felt a lot like a T20 game with twenty fewer balls. The crowd also had a T20 feel to it.

Given the summer the pitch was slow and shots plugged before they reached the boundary. Welsh Fire women beat London Spirit  but the latter had a last ball victory in the men’s match.

Enjoyable? Up to a point. I enjoy cricket most when you don’t have to pay attention all the time, have a chat, read the paper, and then check events in the middle. The Hundred as T20 demands attention.

The political danger of course is that having morphed The Hundred into very nearly T20 the franchise owners (who own clubs in other T20 competitions, sometimes with the same players) will dictate that its not a hundred but a hundred and twenty balls. That will disrupt the existing T20 Blast and cause further issues for the Counties.

Capitalism is disruptive and thrives on being so.

As for Menna, we’re looking at tickets for the England v Sri Lanka international in Cardiff in September. So that sort of worked!