England T20/ODI series v New Zealand/Ireland.

[Arthur Crabtree]

What a very strange home international summer.

[Durhamfootman]

having got the ashes out of the way really early, the rest of the international summer felt more like a series of pre-season friendlies

[sussexpob]

What a very strange home international summer.

This is sadly the future, because the ECB have thrown everything into ensuring the national team players are available as much for the 100 as possible. With the IPL now scheduled to end in the last week of May, and a lot of other teams turning up in England with half their squads still in India for early season series, I wonder at what point England's player insist on this.... and we will be left with June and July as a window for player, along with an opportunity to have rained off matches in September to October.

[alfie]

Does seem a messy fixture - in truth these final ODIs seem like a bit of a waste of time anyway ; though I suppose if Ireland had made the WC they’d have appreciated the warm up value.

As long as this wretched Hundred ( at least in its present form) is allowed to dominate the schedule , you are faced with an insoluble problem , I fear. I can’t help but think the eventual solution could be some sort of merger of it with the domestic t20 but not sure if that will ever be possible…

[sussexpob]

As long as this wretched Hundred ( at least in its present form) is allowed to dominate the schedule , you are faced with an insoluble problem , I fear. I can’t help but think the eventual solution could be some sort of merger of it with the domestic t20 but not sure if that will ever be possible…

The ECB stripped the bones of county cricket for everything they wanted for the Hundred, and have done everything in their power to make a flawed model work, even if it in many cases amounts to self-harming. The ECB would rather see the Hundred catch into flames, then sell off the debt ridden format to private investors to take over the game, than ever retreat - I think that is certain on how deep into the rabbit hole they went, even as cricket fans everywhere told them to stop being mad. All of cricket seems locked into this madness of T20 Franchises as the only way forward, and at the cost of ODI/50 format. We are continually told by people like Wasim Akram 50 over cricket is dead, boring, no one likes it - and yet, I am left wondering what is actually based on? In my opinion, not much. The various boards around the world have invested so much into franchise cricket, they are trying their best to condition people into believing its what they want.

So we get no Australia ODI series, so the international team get to play the Hundred... apparently that was more important.

[sussexpob]

I guess the ECB would cling to the fact that viewing figures for things like IPL are returning astronomical returns, but its debatable what value this has. Of course, DisneyStar and the BCCI want to present the figures as positively as possible, but when you take the final out the equation, a vast majority of these views are not lingering. As an example, I read some interesting data that said if finals are taken out the equation, the recent ODI Asia Cup in 12 matches had more than double the actual time watched in comparision to the IPLs 68 matches, taking into account earlier start times in work hours, and a tournament in the Asia cups case that was wrecked with bad weather. Additionally, these people were mostly (70%) made up of the youngest demographics... so in short, while IPL gains a lot of passing clicks checking the score, the ODI still got astronimical numbers (226 million in the first 12 matches) but people actually tuned in for a good portion of the game.

So I guess you could take from that what you want, but to me if 12 matches produces double the watched hours of 68, it indicates that there is a larger interest in the ODI from a dedicated core of cricket fans while the IPL numbers are just casual fans, and probably not the type that will effect any strategic decision making on where to take the game (especially now Disney Star and other networks are offering India + IPL games free as part of their normal TV packages, so casual fans accessing very short amounts of product they get for free is hardly that game breaking). One thing that was suggested was a real difference maker was the fact the ODIs were streamed live for the first time, which seems to have really been attractive to younger people, who across the board do not watch tv. Again, if you tell me 20 million 18-30 year olds are tuning in for BD v SL in a neutral country, it says to me that 50 over cricket is not exactly a lost, forlorn hope.

And of course, the 50-over world cup is, without a doubt, the biggest tournament in World Cricket with no compare, even more so than the T20 one on viewing figures, and figures of each tournament are on the rise.

[Durhamfootman]

I think we’re playing Australia next year

I’ve always been a fan of 40 over cricket, domestically. I think it’s a better fit. If I wanted to watch a one day cup game, I’d have to take the day off work to do it, even with a day/nighter. A 40 over mid week game can start at 4.30 and be finished by 10 under lights. Easier to get a flyer at work, or just miss the first hour

[sussexpob]

It would all make sense if the Hundred had been worth the damage, but it really seems it hasnt. The blast, moved to the fringes of the season in May evenings where it has been noted that exam periods/school still being on/no summer holidays negatively impacts the sales, especially for under - 16s who make up 21% of the Hundred ticket sales to a mere couple of percent of Blast games, sold 800,000 tickets, down from a peak of just under 1,000,000 before the Hundred strode into town - the Hundred, womans' and mens combined, sold 580,000. The blast has approximately double the games days, but if you consider ticket sales for the Hundred are for both womans and mens compeitions, the number of games to sales is actually very similar... so its not hard to see that even now, the Blast is more popular, even given is relative massive disadvantages.

Also, when comparing average gates for the Blasts top 8 stadium, its no comparision taking like for like. Blast games at the same Hundred venues sold more in 2019 than the Hundred has managed.

Anyone with half a brain would think by now that the extra investment, flexibility for foreign talent, getting English internationals free to play, free to air exposure, etc etc given to the Blast would have produced better results than the concept of the Hundred, and probably by some margin.

Instead, we seem to be getting a slow drifting where the two will meet somewhere in the middle, and probably represent two of the same competition of equalish popularity. And at some stage the sheer glut of T20 cricket will take its toll. Rather than create a super competition, we seem to have got two devalued parallel ones, neither of which seems to represent a zenith to English crickets future.