The Counties Strike Back

 

ECB under pressure to cut Hundred window as counties fight back

Hundred may be handed over to PGB that would see tournament link up with other competitions and potentially facilitate shortening the window

ByNick Hoult, CHIEF CRICKET CORRESPONDENT 20 October 2022 • 11:30am


The England & Wales Cricket Board is under pressure to shorten the window for the Hundred as counties fight back against changes to the domestic schedule. Lancashire, Surrey and Glamorgan are three clubs who have told members over the past week that they would like to see the Hundred window cut from four weeks to help ease scheduling crisis. All three counties host Hundred teams and their views are broadly replicated across the domestic game.

Telegraph Sport also understands there is a strong possibility the Hundred will come under the auspices of the Professional Game Board, an arm of the ECB that runs domestic competitions and is led by a selected group of county chief executives.The Hundred was set up with a separate board and as a completely different entity to the county competitions. By giving the PGB control it will link up the Hundred with other competitions, decentralise the tournament and potentially facilitate shortening the window if the counties get their way. 

Rob Key, the England director of cricket, urged the counties to get behind the Hundred in an interview with Telegraph Sport during which he also became the first senior ECB figure to publicly concede the proposals put forward by Sir Andrew Strauss’s High Performance Review had failed to gain support. It is understood those proposals – which included cutting the championship to 10 matches with a top division of six and reducing the Blast from 14 to 10 games – are dead in the water and discussions on a compromise are unlikely to be resolved this year. 

The Hundred has been sold to broadcasters until 2028 and will be held during a four-week window in August. To cut the length of their new tournament would see the ECB buck trends for national governing bodies, who across the world are putting their muscle behind Twenty20 leagues. The Big Bash and IPL have both expanded in recent years and 2023 will see the launch of T20 leagues in South Africa, the UAE and the United States.The ECB’s ultimate ambition is to attract private financial investment in the Hundred, something Richard Thompson, the board’s new chairman, has admitted publicly as the logical next step.


Shortening the window would send the wrong message to potential investors because it would suggest the board is not fully convinced its own competition is working, however it would be an olive branch for the counties to put before members incensed by moves to cut the championship.

Walking into this is the new chief executive of the ECB with an appointment imminent. Final interviews with Richard Gould and Tim Bostock took place on Wednesday and repairing relationships and rebuilding trust with the counties will be the first task of the successful candidate.

But they will also have to solve the domestic schedule, restructure the ECB and its finances and decide what to do with the Hundred going forward – does it remain in the form it is now, monetised differently or sold off to private investment.

There is also the ECB's place at the top table of international cricket and how it combats the rise of rival leagues around the world to deal with too.

Reducing the window to 21 days for the Hundred could be achieved by playing more double headers, which would then give a little bit more time for the championship but it will prove a difficult negotiation with Sky and the BBC, who have paid for Hundred rights and want a tournament with mainly one match per day because they believe it helps build a narrative.

One compromise put forward is to cut the championship to 12 matches and played across three divisions with a top flight of six teams.