The Hundred

They have no Welsh players.

It’s utterly farcical.

With the teams only playing eight games, one against each opponent and another match against their local neighbour it means they will be only 4 home games. Clearly the income isn’t going to come from gate receipts but from advertising and TV coverage. This being the case I am surprised that enthusiastic centres like Taunton, Hove, Worcester will be ignored. Cardiff and the Welsh Fire will be dependent upon Glamorgan to fill the ground. There won’t be many going from Somerset but perhaps some from Bristol might go, others will know better than me about that. TV will soon pick up on empty grounds or even grounds not full. For TV the atmospheres will be very important, we will see.

Jack, your point about Ollie Stone and James Bracey against Viljoen and Cooke is a good one. But I was also pleased that the squads do appear to have a lot of English talent. Interesting to see what the BBC was saying (not really interesting, but I use it a lot!) about teams with the best squads. Despite what they said I thought the Manchester Originals, Welsh Fire and Southern Spirit look to be strong. Following it last night I thought that the teams were looking much closer at the bowlers and preferring overseas bowlers to overseas batsmen.

Well done bluetornados, I’d forgotten we had this thread!
I have watched it tonight (much against my better instinct) and although Hampshire had the razzamataz and lots of bright colours that was a farce. It wasn’t really a spectacle, it was more a mismatch. I won’t embarrass certain Welsh Fire players by identifying them but that was one of the poorest one day matches I’ve seen for ages. Looking at that bowling attack from the Welsh I can’t believe that they thought it was ever likely to take wickets and give themselves a chance. I’ve seen more composed batting from a village team on a Saturday afternoon than I saw from the Welsh Fire batsmen.

Back at a Q and A in 2019 (or was it 2018?) Tom Harrison from the ECB told me at Taunton that Somerset players would be a big part of Welsh Fire and we should support them. Ha! However the squad is now composed I cannot believe that the ECB planned that the squad the Welsh put out has anything in common with what was originally planned. That team tonight would not have beaten many of the county T20 teams this season. The batsmen played like headless chickens and the bowlers had the threat that I have bowling to my grandsons! The standard is really poor and I can’t believe that what’s happened tonight is anywhere near what the ECB planned.

The ECB have spent upwards of £70m, almost wiping out their savings, on promoting a competition that has a team like the Welsh put out tonight. They must be very embarrassed, not that they would admit that.

Apart I would make a few points about the competition in general:
1. Coming back from Taunton earlier on I listened to 5live and their commentator Henry Moran. He was on-message! He explained that it was a revolutionary competition and that it had been made simpler. When asked how it was simpler he said that now fans can see that with only a 100 balls it’s easier to see that teams have to score more runs than the opposition. In other words the opposition will try and score more runs than the team they are playing. In other words much like it was when WG Grace was playing. Very condescending and deluded. I understand the need to attract a new audience to cricket and having it on free to view terrestrial TV is a step forward but treating existing fans in such a condescending way is poor.

2. I felt a tad sorry for the Welsh having lost Jonny Bairstow the day before which must have ruined all their well-made plans. The ECB need to do something about the over-work of certain England contracted players. Ben Stokes mentioned it a week ago when he retired from one day cricket and withdrew from the Northern Superchargers squad that he needed a break. I thought it was a real criticism of the ECB strategy and the 100 Competition. Something has to give. The ECB should have anticipated problems like this and not have it happen piecemeal like it has.

3. I’m glad to see so many English cricketers being involved in the competition but the quality tonight was very poor. This is not a world class team, it’s barely a team that would be anywhere near the top of the T20 league. I will be interested to see the level of attendances this season. I can’t see Cardiff spectators turning up to see an uncompetitive Welsh Fire team deprived of Jonny Bairstow, esp after many would have bought tickets on the understanding that he would be playing. And when the cameras panned around the Aegeas Bowl you could see it wasn’t even half full with the Main Stand being only a quarter full. Last season they gave so many tickets away to get people to go. Many more matches like tonight they may be having to do that again.

My rant is over! As you can see I’m not a fan of it but I understand other cricket fans may be. I don’t really want to turn this into a partisan county v county issue but I know that were Somerset to be in the competition we would fill Taunton with around 10,000 with temporary stands. As it was, tonight there was barely 7,000 in the Aegeas and they are the holders! But it is a different competition and I realise that the way the draft works it wouldn’t be a “Somerset” side so I know it would be a “Western Storm” type side.

It would be good to hear other views, esp if you are pro the competition and reasons why. 👍

It's a terrible competition.

Wetherspoons have been given planning permission to build a new hostelry on the Gloucester Rd.   Most of their pubs have some sort of local theme in their name, and I emailed their HQ to suggest that they call the place, "The Wally Hammond."     Played cricket for Glos and football for BRFC.  But, I haven`t heard back.