Proposed new English franchise tournament

The tenor of this article doesn't surprise me in the least. What Rob Andrew actually says is " (he) is determined to put a “positive spin” on The Hundred." The article tactfully but clearly exposes the fact that the counties are now having to adopt a damage limitation approach to The 100. The article is not very optimistic about the project. In fact, the ECB concede that top English white ball cricketers will not play 50 over domestic cricket. and that the 50 over comp will become a "development model" - more PR speak!

"The ECB has proposed a six-month extension to Colin Graves’ term as chairman, from May–November 2020, so he can oversee the first summer of The Hundred"  They obviously want to give him the opportunity to bask in the success of his wonderful creation. Perhaps they fear that he might modestly wish his successor (poor sod) to take all the credit.

Here is one of the cricket journalists (works for Cricbuzz and gave us the scoop on the Mark Davis sacking) who has the courage
to put his head above the parapet and support the 100. No doubt he will now endure a barrage of Twitter abuse. 

This photograph has been taken off The Hundred site now as someone found out that it was taken in 2017 at a rap concert in Miami, USA! 
ECB are a laugh a minute, if you didn’t laugh you’d cry! 

It's so poor, you wonder if there's a saboteur on the inside.  

'The Hundred's managing director Sanjay Patel is promising an entertainment experience like cricket has never seen before. Exact details are scant, but comedian Michael McIntyre has been linked with a commentary stint.'

Really? Is this a joke?

There's an easy way of getting a new generation of kids interested in cricket, as in the golden summer of 2005 with the Ashes on C4. How to repeat it? Maybe bring that series back to FTA, or at least a couple of the matches. Get some of the Vitality Blast on FTA too. It isn't rocket science.

As for the apparent complaints.
Existing T20 comp overruns 3 hours? Stricter time limits. Finishes after 9? Start the game earlier. There are various things you can do with existing competitons but the ECB seem to have not even considered them.

I have said elsewhere the franchise style just doesn't work in this country compared to the Big Bash, as mentioned by another poster. We have an existing structure and an affiliation to them. Is a parent in Durham going to spend more time travelling to a game than their kids spend at it for example?

Oh an another thing. A kid amazingly does pick up a bat and ball off the back of this thing. That'll be fun explaining to them why in a Test, one day or T20 game they switch ends every 6 balls and only one of them bowls. The basics should be uniform across all formats. It would be like having a seperate Premier League competition but with 2 keepers and smaller goals.

I think Surrey are suggesting that the ECB has not used Surrey's data for the T20 demographic, but has instead used aggregate data for all 3 formats, in an attempt to exaggerate the problem of attracting young people to cricket.

to quote the article:

"Surrey’s research of their T20 sales over the last three years shows that one third of attendees are between 25-34, the average age is 38 and only 18 per cent are over 55, one in five purchasers are women and family tickets made up more than 20 per cent of all tickets sold. This is clearly a smaller sample size than the ECB’s figures, which encompass all men’s professional cricket.

“We queried with the ECB the accuracy of the numbers because they seemed to be inaccurate and out of context and not relative to The Hundred,” said Gould.

“That is why we have provided some numbers so it is clear we are providing a young, diverse audience."

None of this surprises me.