Thoughts on the Hundred

I didn't watch the draft for the new competition last weekend. By all accounts it was a glorified game show and, as regulars will know, I have no interest in the competition.

Unlike some who have been quick to criticise 'greedy' players in social media, I have no problem with players putting their names in the frame for it. They are professionals and, like any one of us, will provide for their families and their own lifestyle in the ways that are available. We'd all do the same, so don't lie and say otherwise.

I just don't see the need for the competition, then nor now. Were innovation required, there was scope to do something within the eighteen counties, either changing the fifty-over competition to a knock out or mixing up the T20 so you don't play the same sides every year. They could have made four-day cricket a three-tier system. All of these options would have been far less costly than introducing another competition, downgrading the format in which we just became world champions and alienating a fan base that supported the most successful T20 summer ever.

Players have complained in recent years about a lack of down time, yet here we introduce more cricket for the 'chosen elite' that will add to the pressures on body and mind. A competition that no one, outside those set to make a nice little earner, can find positive noises to make about it.

Let's be clear. Since it was first touted, the marketing and publicity behind this competition has been a shambles. From saying it was not aimed at the traditional fan (silly) to simplifying it for Mums and kids (patronising) to choosing Test Grounds to host it, but not Durham (absurd) it has been pathetic. Laurel and Hardy does marketing. The costs incurred are hideous and rising, the repeated evasiveness of Tom Harrison and Colin Graves at yesterday's DCMS hearing telling a damning tale worthy of Roald Dahl, perhaps even Stephen King.

Had I been 'consulted', which apparently happened with us all but no one seems to have noticed, I would have suggested, if there had to be something different, having one team based in Edinburgh, to tap into that new audience. Or at least use Durham, which is a fairly easy drive from the north. Why not do a pro-celebrity cricket league, an amalgam of Strictly Come Dancing, the old International Cavaliers and a charity match? You could have included some recently retired legends, some reality stars and celebrities. The standard might not have been high, but you could have got your photo taken with Olly Murs or that bloke from Love Island, as well as seeing Trescothick or Ramprakash bat one last time, or Warney turn his arm over at the opposite end to Katherine Jenkins. Before you laugh, remember that charity match at Derby last year, where the standard was as varied as the bowling lengths, but the ground was full? Remember how crowds used to flock to see the Cavaliers?

Few fans of my acquaintance have any interest in the new competition. More worryingly, no one who currently doesn't follow the game seems to either. For them, it is like putting lipstick on a pig. Dress it up all you like, but as soon as the 'c' word is mentioned, they don't want to know. I have tried it on friends and they aren't interested, despite ECB protestations to the contrary, based on their 'research'. Perhaps like the research done for these adverts on TV, where 72% of 67 surveyed, it says in very small print, reckoned it helped their dandruff...

Yes, Derbyshire will lose four of their best players to it, but many of our rivals will do the same, though the selections last weekend raised some eyebrows. Certainly mine, when I saw them, with short form poster boy Chris Gayle ignored, the same Chris Gayle that pre-publicity said would attract new audiences to see him bat.

Nottinghamshire lose an entire team, but their parochial picking, which saw no one from their neighbouring counties selected and seven from Trent Bridge, did little to erase the thoughts that this is a backdoor approach to rationalising the county set up. Were the four Derbyshire players selected in an East Midlands squad, I could have understood it more, but watching two of our players in opposition, playing in manufactured sides, holds as much appeal as one of the old 'Smokers v Non Smokers' matches.

It highlights, of course, what excellent players we have at the club. Another two or three could deem themselves unlucky not to be selected, but the likes of Josh Cobb, Colin Ackerman and many others around the country could say the same. While on the one hand you might have wanted to retain all of your players for the RLODC, you also want them to be picked, because otherwise the perception that you need to play for a bigger county to get noticed becomes stronger. Isn't that the case for Leicestershire (none selected) and Northamptonshire (one)?

The frustration is that the competition takes up high summer, the best days for cricket-watching. Balmy days on the boundary edge will be more sporadic, unless you decide to go to these games, which are evening matches anyway. It won't affect me too much, as it is then that we take our family holidays, but for many others it is like the loss of a friend.

As for Derbyshire, we lose three of our top four. I am not sure what more Billy Godleman could have done to earn selection, but perhaps the unorthodox manner of his game did for him, as it did for Kim Barnett before him. Yet our squad, as a few of you pointed out, can still produce a decent side for fifty-over cricket, unless we lose another one or two to forthcoming  'wild card' picks, which sounds too Simon Cowell for my comfort.

Notionally, we could field:

Godleman,
Lace (or another batsman)
Dal
Hughes
Critchley
Hosein
Hudson-Prentice
McKiernan
Conners
Palladino
Melton/new bowler

Question marks over the batting, perhaps, but we will be largely playing second teams anyway. One or two of you came up with the same side (because it is all we have left) but my understanding is that no overseas players will be allowed in the competition, unless I missed a recent change to that.

Whether it means short-term contracts for a couple of players I don't know. It may afford opportunities for good Minor Counties players, while Tom Wood might be a local beneficiary, but it is all rather messy.

One thing is for sure -  most of us don't and won't like it, but it is going ahead now. It may turn out better than we expect, or produce matches totally devoid of interest and atmosphere. But it is happening, so we must like it or lump it.

Don't expect to read old Peakfan reporting on it, as I won't watch it. It holds as much interest for me as a domestic game in Sri Lanka, or a match between two league sides in Cornwall. I like my cricket, but not between sides that are the cricketing equivalent of The Monkees, the Sixties pop band put together to capitalise on the appeal of The Beatles, specifically for television. They were a pale imitation of the real thing too.

Sadly, while it lasts, summers will never be the same.

But whoever wears those eleven county shirts will have my support.

Postscript : overseas players CAN play in the RLODC