What Hundred has got right (and very wrong) this season

Even the Hundred’s most ardent fans — and they do exist, even discounting those paid to tell us what an exciting format it is — would not pretend that this year’s tournament has been an unalloyed triumph. Short-format cricket requires the thrills of fours and sixes, and batsmen have simply found life too tough in this, the fourth edition of the competition.
Whether this will have a deleterious impact on the potential investors the ECB is courting remains to be seen but the answer is probably not really. Those who are interested in taking stakes will feel they can reshape the Hundred into something more commercially potent. Some of the problems affecting it can be fairly readily rectified. Here are some of the main features of the season.
Bowlers have been especially dominant in the men’s tournament. The teams who finished bottom of the table struggled with the bat: London Spirit managed just one individual fifty while the six-hitting count of Manchester Originals, who badly missed the injured Jos Buttler, dropped from 68 in 2023 to 36. Overall, there has been an almost 15 per cent decline in sixes hit compared with last year and, at time of writing, only two totals of at least 180, down from 12. The principal reasons — the ball and the pitches (see below) — will need addressing.
Scoring may have been low in the men’s tournament but there were plenty of tight finishes. The eliminator went to a Super Five, which Southern Brave won to seal a place in today’s final thanks to Jofra Archer conceding only seven from his set. Trent Rockets won one match by just one run and lost others by six runs and four runs. In the women’s tournament, there were two ties, including between London Spirit and Oval Invincibles, who met again in this weekend’s eliminator, while the Rockets lost nail-biters, losing by one run and three runs.
There was a concerted effort to get frontline England men involved. In all, 16 of the 26 players with full central contracts have featured, including the Test captain, Ben Stokes, who tore a hamstring, putting him out of the Sri Lanka series; they made 92 appearances in the group stage. The batsmen Ben Duckett, Jamie Smith and Jordan Cox were all available this weekend even though they are in the Test squad but the fast bowler Gus Atkinson was not. Duckett has had a fine tournament, scoring 262 runs. Sam Curran has been the standout all-rounder, scoring 176 runs and taking 17 wickets, including a hat-trick.
Anyone who has walked around the concourses will have noticed how much merchandise is for sale and how much of it is being worn by fans — what organisers will regard as a crucial step towards building brand identity of new teams. The Oval Invincibles have gained a head start, winning the women’s event in 2021 and 2022 and the men’s in 2023, with the chance to do the double should they win today’s final at Lord’s. Their women lost the eliminator yesterday to miss out on a third final. It continues to be striking how different the demographics are from traditional cricket audiences, with so many children and women in attendance. There is a definite vibrancy to the mood.
The Kookaburra balls are different from those used in international white-ball cricket: the seam is more pronounced and possibly more pronounced than even the red Dukes used for Tests in England. Such a seam will grip in the pitch. The balls also have a large Hundred logo printed in gold on one side, which players believe weighs down that side and helps generate swing. Little wonder, perhaps, that Dan Worrall managed to deliver ten consecutive dot balls to Tom Kohler-Cadmore. Removing the logo and lessening the seam would provide better balance between bat and ball.
Players feel that the pitches have been tired and dry, and groundsmen have come under scrutiny because of it, but this may be no more than a symptom of the season being five months old. But combined with a proud seam, the ball has gripped and nipped around. This has also brought spin into the game, generally viewed as a good thing.
Relentless pressure on the schedule means the Hundred is taking place in 27 days, the same length as last year but five days fewer than in 2022. This gives the players little time to recover or train, and one of the main attractions of youngsters rubbing shoulders with international stars is to learn from them in the nets. The teams that reach the final via the eliminator will play ten times inside four weeks. The quality could rise if there was a reversion to 32 days.
There have been some outstanding performers from overseas — Adam Zampa and Nicholas Pooran in the men’s competition, and Jess Jonassen and Hayley Matthews for Welsh Fire in the women’s — but the tournament could do with more international stardust. In the face of competition from leagues in the Caribbean, the United States and Sri Lanka, the men’s event has been heavily dependent on imports from New Zealand and Pakistan. The expectation is that, with private investment, salaries will at least double, which should alter the balance of power when it comes to competing for global talent.