The Hundred Reductions 2021

Does this mean that The Hundred will be rebranded as The Eighty?

Hundred faces salary cuts and partial re-draft.
Matt Roller.

Cricinfo.

Tuesday, 23 June 2020.

PTG 3170-15692.

Salary bands in the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (EWCB) Hundred are set to be cut by up to 20 per cent for men's players when the competition launches in 2021. Players were due to earn between £UK30,000 and £UK125,000 ($A53,855-224,395) in the competition this year before the Covid-19 pandemic forced its postponement. Details are still being ironed out, but the range could now be cut to £UK24,000-£UK100,000 ($A43,080-179,505) as English cricket comes to terms with the financial implications of a significantly reduced season.

Daryl Mitchell, chairman of the Professional Cricketers' Association (PCA), said: "There's been up to 20 here cent cuts to county contracts across the last few months - 17 per cent for April and May, 20 per cent for June and July, so far. So some sort of cut across the Hundred would make sense, keeping money in the game to support counties and county players as well. I don't think there will be any issues across that”.

The 16 players picked at the top price in October's draft included Mitchell Starc, Steve Smith and David Warner - all of whom set their reserve price at £UK125,000 ($A224,395) - and five domestic players: Moeen Ali, Liam Livingstone, Eoin Morgan, Jason Roy and Dane Vilas. While there may be some concerns over whether top overseas players will still want to play in the competition on a lower wage, it is widely recognised that it would be wrong to freeze the salary pot for the Hundred at a time when so many young county players are concerned about their contract status.

There is also a growing acceptance that some form of partial re-draft will be required for the competition. Contracts for the 2020 season were cancelled at the start of May after the tournament's postponement, and since then regular discussions have taken place between the PCA and the EWCB about how the squads will look next year.

Under the Hundred's initial retention rules, teams would have been able to retain up to ten players from their 2020 squad for the 2021 edition, at a salary band negotiated with the player. A mini-draft would then have followed to allow teams to fill the gaps in their squads. There appears to be little appetite for a total re-draft, but also a sense that completely freezing squads will be impossible.

"It's a pretty difficult one from a PCA perspective”, Mitchell said. "You've got 96 domestic players in the competition who had contracts for this year, and there's obviously 300 or so that haven't and would love to be a part of it. Opinion seems to be split as to whether these rosters should be rolled over or not. I think it's the right thing that there's not going to be a complete re-draft from start to finish, but I think there's going to be an element of retention from each of the teams from the squads they picked".

"I think you need to see what sort of T20 competition is possible this year and how that pans out. Obviously England central contracts will be decided at the end of September or early October, and we don't know what changes there might be from that. Then we need a little bit more clarity about the international Future Tours Program for next year, and also a little bit more clarity about the Kolpak situation for next year. There's so many moving parts around it at the moment”.

The salary cuts are unlikely to extend to the women's competition, for which the initial salary bands ranged from £UK3,600 to £UK15,000 ($A6,460-26,915) - significantly lower than the men's. The EWCB has announced that equal prize money will be on offer for men and women, but the scale of the disparity of pay between the two competitions raised eyebrows last year. "They need to be maintained, that's my opinion”, Mitchell said. "They're significantly less than the men's salaries at the moment… I don't think the cut across the men's and the women's would necessarily be the same”.

Women's cricketers have felt the squeeze from the financial implications of the pandemic harder than their male counterparts. The EWCB was due to introduce 40 new contracts for female players this year, but those deals have been put on ice with 24 retainers introduced instead. Mitchell said that the situation for women's players had been "incredibly tough" but that there was "light at the end of the tunnel" with full contracts for the new regional development centres set to be awarded before the end of the year.

"Credit to the ECB - they've put 24 [players on] retainers to try and help those people out. There's a little bit lacking for a lot of players financially, not playing in the Hundred as well, so it's been tough for some of those players on the fringes who would have expected to become a full-time pro this year. But I think there's light at the end of the tunnel with those contracts being awarded at some point in the near future. As chairman, I'm looking forward to being able to welcome 40 women into the PCA as professional members”.

The England and Wales Cricket Board has released a further £35.7m to support counties and amateur clubs during the coronavirus pandemic.

It follows a £61m package that was made available in April.

More than £30m will be allocated to the 18 first-class counties and the MCC on 1 August - the earliest date domestic professional cricket can begin.

Talks are currently taking place over how county cricket may be scheduled later this summer.

The counties will each receive the full funding they were due from the inaugural season of The Hundred, which has been postponed until next summer.The remaining £5.5m will be made available to the county cricket boards that run the recreational game.

Amateur clubs still have access to £20m worth of loans and grants, which were part of the funding released in April.

Recreational cricket has been suspended indefinitely by the ECB, which released a "roadmap" for its return last week.

"It is the ECB's responsibility to protect the whole game's future during the financial uncertainty we face as a sport," said ECB chief executive Tom Harrison.

"While I am pleased the ECB board has been able to approve this financial support package for the remainder of this year, we are still only at the beginning of addressing the impact of this crisis on cricket.

"It remains our priority to get cricket started again this summer, from the grassroots to the elite level, and we will continue to work with government to try and do that in a way that keeps people safe but that limits the ongoing impact of this crisis on our game."

BBCSport

Glamorgan will not play any fixtures at their outgrounds during the 2020 season because of the coronavirus pandemic.

There will be no county cricket of any sort until 1 August at the earliest.

If competition resumes, Glamorgan will only play home matches at their Sophia Gardens headquarters in Cardiff.

"We were looking forward to our annual fixtures in Swansea and Colwyn Bay, and taking one-day cricket to Newport for our 2020 season," said the Welsh county's chief executive, Hugh Morris.

"It is with regret that we announce that the logistical challenges of hosting outground cricket simply cannot be met in this current, uncertain climate.

"The domestic fixture schedule for 2020 has yet to be determined, but if cricket is able to safely return, our focus for the season will be on hosting all matches at our main venue, Sophia Gardens.

"We remain committed to taking Glamorgan games across Wales for wider communities to enjoy, when we are able to do so safely and securely."

Glamorgan's outgrounds have a long and rich history, with Sir Garfield Sobers becoming the first cricketer to hit six sixes in a single over in a first-class match while playing for Nottinghamshire at St Helen's in 1968.

Colwyn Bay has also hosted its share of notable matches, with Steve James recording the highest individual Glamorgan innings - an unbeaten 309 - against Sussex at the north Wales ground in 2000.

BBCSport


Test venues such as Old Trafford would be able to welcome crowds of "six or seven thousand" in a safe, distanced environment, says Lancashire chief executive Daniel Gidney.

Although government guidance allows sport to be played behind closed doors, the England and Wales Cricket Board has ruled out a return before 1 August.

Crowds are not expected at professional games until at least September.

"We can manage social distancing," Gidney told BBC Sport.

"I think it depends on if we get to one metre, one and a half or two metres [required distancing], but at the very least I think we could be looking at six or seven thousand [people] based on current guidelines, with quite a bit of room to manoeuvre."

The World Health Organisation recommends a one-metre gap between people, although many countries - including the UK - have greater distancing rules.

In addition, being outdoors, while still requiring distancing and safety protocols in place, is considered less of a risk than being in an enclosed space.

Old Trafford, with a 26,000 capacity and Test standard facilities, is well placed to cope with the required alterations.

"There are a number of things we can do," added Gidney. "There are one-way systems, we can put perspex coverings on food and beverage counters, and provide personal protective equipment for staff."

Gidney is confident Lancashire would have the infrastructure already in place to host a T20 game behind closed doors even under current safety guidelines.

While there is acceptance that public confidence needs to be built, there is also hope that the restrictions will be lifted, in time, to allow clubs to host spectators in a safe manner.

"If you are inside then a lot of it is about ventilation," continued Gidney. "People not being in close contact, not being opposite somebody else for more than 15 minutes.

"That's the very high risk element, but outside if people are sitting side to side and a bit away from each other that should be safe to do, but I do understand a lot of people's nervousness from previous major events.

"But I think we can do a 'slowly, slowly' approach and get small numbers of people back in on a reduced capacity basis." BBCSport

Bio-secure venues can withstand Covid second wave.

Cricinfo.

Friday, 5 June 2020.

PTG 3149-15587.

Steve Elworthy, the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (EWCB) director of events, believes that the plans for July's Test series against West Indies are robust enough to withstand a second wave of Covid-19 outbreaks, following this week's formal announcement that the Ageas Bowl and Old Trafford have been chosen to host the three games.

Speaking on television Elworthy went into greater depth on the rationale behind the selection of the two venues, both of which have on-site hotels - which was the primary reason why grounds such as The Oval, where the first Test of the summer had originally  been due to get underway on Thursday, were ruled out in the EWCB's search for "bio-secure" environments.

West Indies are due to arrive in England next week, with their initial training block set to take place at Old Trafford before England themselves gather at the Ageas Bowl in the build-up to the first Test on July 8. The two squads will then practice in closer proximity in the days leading up the match, before relocating to Old Trafford for the final two matches of the series, commencing July 16 and July 24 respectively.

And while there have been concerns in the local media that Manchester, in the north-west of England, is particularly susceptible to a surge in Covid cases, Elworthy is confident that the series will go ahead without a hitch, especially if the International Cricket Council agrees to sanction the introduction of like-for-like replacements in the event of infection within the secure environment (PTG 3144-15562, 31 May 2020).

"The way we have structured the 'bubble' is that it can operate under the most extreme circumstances”, said Elworthy. "All of our planning has been based on the worst-case scenario, from an infection and a rate-spike point of view. So external factors should not affect that because, if you are secure within the venue, and you don't break the confines of that venue, then your game should be able to go ahead with no problems at all”.

The likeliest opportunity for that bubble to break will come when the teams make the 370km journey from Southampton to Manchester, but Elworthy justified the need to vary the conditions in which the series is played from the point of view of cricket "integrity", and also to provide a change of scene for players, support staff and media who might otherwise be confined to one place for up to a month.

"If you were to hold your first two Test matches at the same venue, you could end up possibly winning a series in the same conditions in the same venue, back-to-back”, he said. "We felt that, to win a series, you should have to win it in two separate sets of conditions.  We're trying to reduce the amount of time that stakeholders or groups of people are locked down in [a particular] venue for periods of time”, he added. "We're trying to cover as many of those bases as possible”.

The Ageas Bowl, Elworthy added, had been chosen for the series opener because its out-of-town location includes a full-sized practice pitch, situated right next to the main venue. "We wanted both teams to be able to practice and train and prepare for a Test match, and having two full grounds available to be able to train was key”.

The provisions for bio-security, as outlined by the EWCB when announcing the match allocation, include controlled access at the perimeter of the venues, as well as on-site medical screening and testing provisions, including designated areas for isolation of anyone presenting symptoms.

"It's not only the players we thinking about”, said Elworthy. "With around 250-odd people within the venue, any one of them could possibly test positive in a period of a five-day Test match.  They would immediately be put into isolation, and our on-site Covid medical practitioner and Public Health England would be informed immediately”, he added. "And that player or person would then be put into isolation for a period of time based on the government guidance and the medical overlay”.

Earlier this week, West Indies confirmed their squad for the England tour, and while it will be missing three players who chose not to travel due to fears of infection - Keemo Paul, Shimron Hetmeyer and Darren Bravo - Elworthy preferred to focus on the 25 names who had chosen to trust the contingencies that have been put in place.

"Everybody was given the right to make their own decision, and that's not the first time that's happened across cricket, even with the England team at times”, he said. "But I look at it glass-half-full. It's incredibly positive that we have a West Indian squad of 25 players who are coming to compete in a Test series against England. I think that's fantastic for the game.  It's incredibly challenging putting this all together, but at the same time I think it's hugely, hugely rewarding for the game. As a cricket family, we've got to come together on this to make it work”.