I am now!

Enjoying it!
RM.

Graphics are a bit weird but the standard of cricket seems good and there’s a fair crowd there. Players are well up for it too.

I don’t mind the different style of graphics. Atmosphere at the ground looks brill. Excellent fielding.
RM.

I really enjoyed that.

Can’t get my head around 5 ball overs yet but the ground was buzzing, the game was exciting and the BBC team were entertaining as usual.

The organisers will be happy, the crusty old boys who are desperate for it to fail will be not so happy.

Just watching it on the iPlayer and really enjoying it.
Cricket is good (bar the very first over that was pretty poor!), sounds like a good atmosphere and the BBC have done a great job of presenting it.
I love how many kids are being involved and I love how diverse the presenting team is, cricket is full of grumpy old white men (have a listen to The Analyst podcast for a snapshot) and it needs to lose that image. I think The Hundred will do a job in helping do that.

Did anyone bowl a 10 ball over all evening? I was dipping in and out so maybe missed it.

Going to be interesting to see on the men’s side if it looks/feels any different to T20. Got to confess I’ve not watched enough women’s cricket to tell last night. Long term is there really a market for two formats with only 40 deliveries different per match in domestic (term used loosely) cricket? Not convinced. They are both quite jazz hands and I can’t see from last night that the hundred is any more accessible to a new audience than the T20 is/could be.

Going to be interesting to see on the men’s side if it looks/feels any different to T20.

That’s the key for me. Last night’s game didn’t seem much different so left me wondering what the point was. Having terrestrial tv, music, fireworks etc was all good stuff but not really dependent on tweaking the T20 format.

Missed the run chase last night, but saw the result and looks like I missed a good un! 1st Men’s game starting now on BBC2!
RM.

I think the main difference between this and T20 is that it’s on the beeb so those with a passing interest in stickball like me, who’d never pay to watch it on TV, will crack open a beer and give it a go. I am enjoying it. The coverage is a bit different – a little less serious. Good numbers at the ground too.

I don’t really get the 5/10 thing. Why have they brought that in? What’s the thinking behind it?

Oh and that was a cracking catch!

I guess just adds to the options for the fielding side – eg: if a spinner has a batter tied in knots then keep bowling and don’t let them off the hook at the end of an over.

Or keep a stone cold death bowler to bowl the last 10

Can a bowler not bowl two overs in a row in 50 over or test cricket then?

Can a bowler not bowl two overs in a row in 50 over or test cricket then?

No

I don’t really get the 5/10 thing. Why have they brought that in? What’s the thinking behind it?

Also means there are only 9 changes of end per innings for the short attention span jobs to get bored rather than 19 in t20.

Could be the beer, G&T and Rose Wine to blame but I’m enjoying KP commentary on Sky’s coverage! Edgebaston looks like it’s rocking.
RM.

Try……..i……n……g t………o list….

e….n on T…..

MS…… but they’ve got gremlins

I’m really enjoying it, but…
I’m struggling to see anything here that they couldn’t have done be re-branding the T20 Blast.
Keep the T20 format, add women’s teams and you have a format that old cricket fans know but it’s short enough and exciting enough for a new audience.

Agree. I went into it with an open mind and looking forward to seeing more cricket so not being a grump about it, however this is what T20 should’ve been. I believe they wanted to rebrand T20 but the counties were against it so they had to develop a whole new concept.

I do feel the constant “this is great”, “the atmosphere is wonderful”, “this is brilliant” is all a bit forced, like someone from from the Hundreds marketing/pr team are making everyone hype it up

Agreed too, however given that the IPL is 13 seasons old – there’s missing the boat and then some.
RM.

how **** different did you really think it was going to be ? 2 a side, tennis rackets and a squash ball 10 for boundary 20 if it clears the rope. mulligans and hit and run. Only 1 handed catches count.

for a new format it’s really very conservative.

for a new format it’s really very conservative.

Anyone remember ‘Cricket Max’? Hitting zones and all that?

There are only two advantages to shortening the game:

1) From the point of view of the actual game, improving fielding.

2) From attracting plastic fans, loadsamoney.

The thing is, it is irrelevant what I think, what the aussies think and what the saffers think. Look at the crowd for a test match in India. Then look at the crowd for an IPL game or an international T20. The writing is on the wall. The MCC’s, ACB’s role in all this is to try to leverage as much revenue back from the Mickey Mouse format to succour Test Crickey. That can’t last forever, sadly.

Mike Hendrick RIP….. Perhaps bowled just a tad short of a length but no one had more played and missed as Mike.

np Stokes for the India series probably rules him out of the ashes tour too.

Watching Stokes’ hand in Superchargers “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory” in the hundred this week, it clearly looked like he wasn’t enjoying it. Not nice to see, I hope he gets good support and comes back strong. Would be a shame for him to miss the Ashes – but reading the covid logistics of going out there I don’t hold much hope.
Speaking of the hundred off to Headingley today to watch! Will report back!
RM.

Went to a Hundred match at Edgbaston yesterday and thought I’d share a few thoughts. Do bear in mind I’m a 40 year old guy who took his 70 year old parents, so I’m not the target audience (although, as most people my age have kids, maybe I am?)

1. It’s better live than on TV. Live it feels like a good, fast paced T20 game. You don’t notice the 5 ball overs and don’t really notice them not changing ends every 5/6 balls.
2. The countdown in the 2nd innings is weird to me. I want to see 30 runs scored for 2 wickets of 4 overs, not 120 left to get in 80 balls with 8 wickets left. But then I know and love cricket so this may be grumpy old man territory.
3. The crowd is much more diverse and less beer based. My wife came to a test match recently and described it as a “white, middle class sausage fest”. Yesterdays crowd had loads more families, a wider range of ethnicities and a huge range of ages. Particularly late in the day, it felt much friendlier than some Blast or Test matches.
4. Kids seemed to love it. We were in seats with families all around us and the kids seemed to be really enjoying it. The breaks in play, and the overall duration definitely helped things.
5. The quality of cricket is very, very high. The women’s game was super close, and the men’s came had some serious hitting in it.
6. Overall, I thought it was great and the format works really well indeed, particularly live. I was looking at Birmingham Phoenix merchandise and tickets for later games on the train home.

I still think that much of what has been done could have been done with a revised T20 competition, but taking it as it is, it works really well and I’d definitely return.

Well then, test match time again, really looking forward to it.

england win the toss and will bat first.

Not holding out much hope here seeing as the England players have barely played anything resembling test cricket for a good while.

Rory Burns, Dom Sibley, Zak Crawley, Joe Root (capt), Jonny Bairstow, Dan Lawrence, Jos Buttler (wk), Sam Curran, Ollie Robinson, Stuart Broad, James Anderson.

No spinner, again. Have they not learned from the last 2 tests?

Radio is on (well streaming on the ipad), kettle is boiled, picked out some biscuits (won’t make the first over) work is thankfully quite quiet (jinxed myself now) I shall settle in for the day in my cushioned seat in the spare bedroom/office stand.

swinging! and out

Oh FFS.

You can’t have all of your test players out playing fake franchise white ball cricket and expect them to come in and play test cricket.

I suppose the blame will be placed and the Counties doors somehow though.

nice tribute from India, bowling the Mike “you will not drive me” Hendrix length 😉

oh dear

Shepherd pies and gimp masks!

Aggers shot down twice 😉

come on chaps make it to tea.

cock

good grief!

No-one has played any first class cricket for months, you can’t expect them to batting well here. Poor preparation showing once again.