The international profile of The Hundred is very high - Tom Harrison
After a false start last summer because of the pandemic, The Hundred will finally begin next week when the women's Oval Invincibles and Manchester Originals teams play each other at The Oval. The competition, based on a brand new format and involving eight new teams, has divided opinion amongst existing cricket supporters in England and Wales but Tom Harrison, the ECB's chief executive, believes the game would be facing a "scary environment" without the new tournament.
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"Before you assess what The Hundred has brought with it, you have got to assess what might have happened had we not had it," Harrison said. "That's a scary environment actually. That's no free-to-air TV, that's a huge chunk on investment into the game which we would not be able to bring. Not to mention any of the audience benefits, the benefits to English and Welsh cricket in this country and overseas. The international profile of this tournament is very high. That has got future potential for us.
http://celebrithyt.ambien-blog.com/profile"If you look at this from a purely business perspective, we are very, very reliant on two things. One is international cricket in this country, more so than any other board in the world probably. Secondly, within that, pay TV as an underlying investor in our sport. We just need to make sure that is at the back of our mind always - that the health of our sport is reliant on those two things in a very significant way.
"Anything we can do to balance out that huge reliance to keep us safe and secure as a sport, to keep our ability to keep investing in the things we love: county cricket, Test cricket, international cricket, four-day Championship cricket, having 450 pros playing men's cricket, starting a women's professional environment, investing in youth programmes, All Stars and Dynamos, investing in urban cricket centres and an EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) strategy.
"They take investment. They are absolutely critical to our long-term survival. The Hundred is absolutely immersed in that strategy to deliver on all of those things."
Despite the criticism from existing supporters, particularly for the potential impacts the competition might have on county cricket, Harrison believes The Hundred will have something for everyone, including those existing supporters who might currently be against it. "For cricket lovers, I think you will find a place, even if it is hugely reluctant," he says. "Because I genuinely believe this is there to enable all cricket lovers to continue to enjoy the elements of our special sport and bring something for everybody to enjoy. And it will keep us safe as we go forward trying to invest in the things we all love."
Beth Barret-Wild, the head of the women's competition, believes the tournament will help speed up the development of the women's game at a far faster pace than the now defunct Kia Super League could have managed. "In every other area of the game when it comes to gender parity we're actually playing catch up," she said. "We're playing catch up on hundreds of years of history and we're trying to make cricket more relevant, more accessible and more inclusive for women and girls.
"The KSL did brilliant things for the women's game. In terms of what The Hundred brings is that scale and that visibility. If you look at the partners The Hundred has brought onboard, in particular through Lego and Topps Cards and the Croods movie and all the other partnerships, those things wouldn't have likely happened through the KSL. The Hundred brings that real power and scale in a way that the KSL on its own probably wouldn't have been able to, in the short-term anyway.
"[The] level of broadcast coverage is absolutely transformational on its own. If we layer on top of this, the equal levels of prominence that will be provided for the men's and women's players and competitions, through the shared marketing platform that we've established, and also the amazing line-up of new commercial partners. The Hundred has already really started to deliver on its role and purpose for the women's game."
Despite a spate of players pulling out of the competition for a variety of reasons, including COVID and bubble fatigue, Sanjay Patel, the managing director of The Hundred, says he is "not too worried" about those absences. The latest high-profile names who will not be taking part include Ellyse Perry, Andre Russell and Kieron Pollard but Patel believes there is still enough quality in the competition, both international and domestic, to ensure a high-class product.
"Of course, we haven't got the original list in either the men's or the women's competition," Patel said. "But if you look at any sporting event right now, they are getting hit with withdrawals. There are people withdrawing from the Open Golf, there are withdrawals from the squads of the British and Irish Lions, etcetera. There is no sports tournament that is going to get through this without any form of disruption. And that is the world we live in and that is the world we have to go to accept.
"Having said that, we still have brilliant overseas stars. I'm excited to see how someone like Devon Conway is going to go. I can't wait to watch the five Indian women's players, who have been getting into form recently in the series [against England]. We've got some brilliant names: one of my favourite overseas players is [Harmanpreet] Kaur, I just want to see her bat in the Hundred.
"We've got brilliant stars still available. The domestic white ball talent now, for both the men and the women, is strong. So I think we're actually less reliant on overseas players. In future years I think those stars [who have pulled out of this edition], once they see it, they're going to put their hands up and I think they are going to be involved in future competitions. We're not too worried about that at this stage."
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