It just isn't cricket

[Satchmo Distel]

Here's a bit of maths fun. Maths that I'm sure the ECB has done. If The Hundred is going to sell more tickets than the T20 Blast, it will have to attract more than 26,000 spectators to each fixture.

Isn't T20 being retained alongside this? I'm not quite sure what the 100 is replacing but I'd imagine the 50 overs format being further eroded and county championship games eventually being limited to April and September.

Audience-wise, I think the current cricket customer is being elbowed out completely in favour of some (possibly fictitious) demographic that has never watched Tests or ODIs.

[Favourite Worst Nightmare]

My thoughts are that the Franchises should be named after famous white elephants, such as the South London Sinclair C5’s or the Midland Minidiscs.

[E10 Rifle]

The T20 is being retained, and the 50-over tournament (you know, that format what England have just won a World Cup in) is downgraded to essentially a reserve team affair.

The thing is, I'm not some red-ball only purist. I think the domestic T20 tournament is a great and trailblazing thing (I went to a lot of games in its early years, when I had more time to do such things), and the ECB is trashing it. It's a classic example of English cricket not knowing what its good at. (See also the way football attempts to downgrade its strong lower division culture)

[Southport Zeb]

Watching the draft this evening. They're not making it easy to follow - could do with some on screen graphics to show what players are already in which team. Also the actual announcement of peaks isn't particularly clear - it keeps getting spoken over by the commentators banter.

[Southport Zeb]

Teams have 100 seconds to make their selections. This is except for Nottinghamshirre Trent Rockets, who get about ten minutes to choose their first pick at each price range (teams select two players at each price) so that they can fit in a load of "analysis"

[Guy Profumo]

Teams have 100 seconds to make their selections. This is except for Nottinghamshirre Trent Rockets, who get about ten minutes to choose their first pick at each price range (teams select two players at each price) so that they can fit in a load of "analysis"

Whut?

Why is that then?

[Hot Pepsi]

ESPN pioneered turning a draft into TV people actually watch. They should just follow their format which indeed has lots of graphics.

[Etienne]

I don't really want to dignify the tournament with any commentary, but having looked at the squads, if Southern Braves win it, I'll be stunned.

[Satchmo Distel]

Why is it called a draft rather than an auction?

[pebblethefish]

Teams have 100 seconds to make their selections. This is except for Nottinghamshirre Trent Rockets, who get about ten minutes to choose their first pick at each price range (teams select two players at each price) so that they can fit in a load of "analysis"

You can cross out Nottinghamshire all you like, but they seemed to have picked at least half of their own players.

And in an auction, the players would be in a set order, with bidding on the player. In a draft, the prices paid are in a set order, and the teams fit the players into the brackets.

[Hot Pepsi]

That’s more or less how our drafts work although except the deal with the player still has to be negotiated.

[Gangster Octopus]

Bumping The Hundred thread...

[ursus arctos]

Many thanks

Was wondering where this was

[diggedy derek]

Sarah Taylor is coming out of retirement to play for Welsh Fire.

[Levin]

How much would an advert just now have cost?

[Levin]

Far too much 'it has to succeed' on my twitter feed this morning. Too big to fail, or rather ECB has put too much into it for it to fail.

[Satchmo Distel]

Cricinfo:

Withdrawals since February 2021:
Men's: Kane Williamson, Shaheen Afridi, Adam Zampa, Glenn Maxwell, Nicholas Pooran, Kagiso Rabada, Shadab Khan, Kieron Pollard, Jhye Richardson, Aaron Finch, David Warner, Andre Russell, Marcus Stoinis, Nathan Coulter-Nile
Women's: Ashleigh Gardner, Sophie Devine, Ellyse Perry, Sune Luus, Amelia Kerr, Ellyse Villani, Nicola Carey, Alyssa Healy, Rachael Haynes, Annabel Sutherland, Sophie Molineux, Georgia Wareham, Jess Jonassen, Meg Lanning, Beth Mooney

[Capybara]

[longeared]

I see from the preview in the Graun that the BBC is only showing two women's matches live - the opener tomorrow night and the final. That's shit, I thought one of the selling points of this shebang was that the two tournaments were being presented and promoted on an equal basis but we're not getting anywhere near parity in the free to air coverage. It doesn't exactly strike me as a good way to attract new fans by suggesting that the women's matches are less of a priority. Also I'm old enough to remember the big BBC campaign a couple of years since when they proudly announced they were going to show hundreds of hours of women's sport under the "Change The Game" banner.

[ursus arctos]

Intriguing ODI between Australia and the Windies in Barbados.

AUS 158 for 4 after 35 overs. The home side ruing some fielding lapses. Hayden Walsh Jr. again making things difficult for the visitors.

[ursus arctos]

Mitchell Starc destroying WI, who are 19 for 4 chasing 253

[Etienne]

Ursus is on the wrong thread.

The graphics are bloody awful.

[Satchmo Distel]

Very harsh on the Windies to put them on this thread.

[longeared]

So you can bowl ten balls in a row as Kapp did at the start and Mady Villiers is doing now, but can you do it across the change of ends? (ie last five balls at one end, first five balls at the other end)

[longeared]

The flashing "OH YEAH!" graphic when a six is hit looks like something from a 1980s computer game.