Ladies 100

I agree about the graphics. I thought they were awful. It's obviously trying to appeal to the Yoof of today. Personally, I'm not sold on the format.

i don’t have to type now what I was going to say, you said it all.   

possibly good for raising profile of women’s game.  Abysmal for established men’s game.    

appeal to youth of today with ZX81 graphics?      

And southwest hotbed of cricket not represented, so why should we bother.        

of course viewing figures not so bad at moment as curious take a look.  Watch them drop off to GBNEWS levels and The Hundred canned before a third season.       

As the first couple of Hundred matches were on BBC, I thought I would give it a chance, despite my widespread misgivings.
Like you Wareham, I don’t want it to be a financial disaster for the game, but don’t think I will be watching much of it.
The opening segment did an OK summary of the difference between the new tournament and traditional cricket, featuring people I had never heard of, apart from Jimmy Anderson, who seemed to be given the role mainly based on their “banter” talents, plus the number of times they could fit ‘you guys” into a sentence.
Some of the players were featured were give three or four minutes interviews, which mainly centred on who in the team had the best dance moves, or wardrobes,.
The commentary teams were mercifully lacking in Radio 1 DJs or the likes, and included Tuffers, Vaughan, and Isa Guha, who brought some cricketing nous the match.
Don’t know about anyone else, I am instantly put off by the stupid American/Australian, IPL team names, but then, as we were told at the Bristol County Ground, at a meeting a couple of season ago, after play, The Hundred wasn’t devised for the likes of me, or other old fogies, but to attract young age groups, in order to bring about a new generation of cricket fans.
Will Brown, at that stage, was trying to convince those of us at the meeting, that one of these franchises would almost certainly be based in Bristol, which obviously never came to pass, making it impossible for many people to have an affiliation with Welsh Fire, or anybody else, even if they contained any Gloucestershire players, now of course, not available for the Royal London Knock out Cup, which starts this weekend.
There were the usual gimmicks, such as firework displays often seen at T20, but thankfully the irritating hunting horn was missing, and it was great to see so many kids and families in a cricket ground, and the crowd actually seemed to be watching the match, no groups of five or six blokes with pints, with their back to the game, which was often a feature of matches in the T20 at Bristol.
No idea how much the tickets cost, but The Oval was well populated, especially for the men’s match.
The Manchester team openers emerged onto the pitch, with a black kit, and matching black Hundred helmets, which made them look like more like Security guards moving towards the Bank Safety deposits, or even the infamous SPG snatch squads of the 1980s, who used to target demonstrators!
After some understandable nerves, the woman’s match settled down, and was watchable and greatly enjoyed by the spectators, with the pundits obviously being primed to emphasise the great atmosphere as often as possible.
I didn’t watch all the game, but did watch more of the men’s match last night, but was wondering just why they couldn’t just have left the tournament as a T20 competition, as there didn’t seem to be that many differences, apart from the 5 or 10 ball idea obviously.
There were useful interventions to explain terms such as yorkers and death bowling, plus which way a leg break turned, for the uninitiated.
Still, even though I have Sky, I won’t be going out of my way to watch the matches particularly, I am more concerned with who will be playing in the Gloucestershire matches in the One Day competition, might be interesting to see some of the younger players feature,
One of the matches is against Essex, and I would like to have the opportunity to see Alastair Cook play one more time, but who knows if these fixtures will be glorified Second 11 matches.

Watching the current Saturday game, ,with the boring Michael Vaughan again the lead commentator with Phil Tuffnell almost as bad, bemoaning the fact that the Southern brave reached only 124, judge it on the second teams effort, Sooo annoying

I am not qualified enough to add comment to the well written comments above. I only have one thing to say.
Any sport that makes up nicknames that have no base in local history or tradition are total nonsense and I wouldn't watch them on principle.
Birmingham "Phoenix", Trent "Rockets", Southern "Brave". WTF.
As Cockney Nan was want to say "What a load of old sh*t".
See also Bristol "Bears".

I am not impressed with The Hundred. As stated, the commentators are trying to make it out as something new/different/special when in reality it is just a re-jigged 20/20 game. The graphics on the screen are truly appalling. Long bar on the left and right take up so much of the screen and all they tell you are how many runs have been scored from so many balls. The colours of the graphics are also terrible. It's like going back to the early days of teletext. The graphics seem to take up one third of the viewing area ! Whenever a six is hit, the flashing up of "oh yeah" is just cringeworthy.
I watched the end of the innings of the team batting first last night. Every ball was aimed just inside the popping crease on the offside. The batsmen could only play shots onto the offside, which was packed with fielders. It was actually boring to watch. Batsmen being clean balled or LBW were just not in the equation. The bowlers don't need to develop any skills like getting the ball to move either in the air or off the seam. No need to develop the yorker. In many ways this is the same as 20/20, but because The Hundred is shorter it appears as though getting batsmen out is now pretty much down the list of priorities for the bowlers. This will be the standard tactic for The Hundred. Pack the offside with fielders, bowl wide and take leg-side shots out of the game.
The Hundred is not something I will follow unfortunately. It's just not cricket.

Do they have to play in the rain ,and are soggy lettuce sarnies compulsory?

Very good. But you missed out No.7 the old professionals having a fag now and again and telling young kids to bu**** off when approached for an autograph.

Not all did.  I`ve still got the autograph that WG signed for me.