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Post by sussexforever on Aug 20, 2019 8:30:05 GMT
"To go back there to coach in The Hundred is exciting and hopefully we can have some success," Lehmann said.
"I know how passionate the fans are and they will demand that we play an entertaining brand of cricket and win."
Which fans are those then?
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Post by flashblade on Aug 20, 2019 10:37:02 GMT
"To go back there to coach in The Hundred is exciting and hopefully we can have some success," Lehmann said. "I know how passionate the fans are and they will demand that we play an entertaining brand of cricket and win." Which fans are those then? Whoever scripts this PR claptrap should be ashamed of themselves. No-one is fooled. |
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Post by flashblade on Aug 20, 2019 15:35:38 GMT
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Bazpan
2nd XI player
Posts: 191 
County club member: Kent
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Post by Bazpan on Aug 21, 2019 14:32:50 GMT
"To go back there to coach in The Hundred is exciting and hopefully we can have some success," Lehmann said. "I know how passionate the fans are and they will demand that we play an entertaining brand of cricket and win." Which fans are those then?
Obligatory confirmation that families won't be refused entry: "It’s a new format that will engage young people ... mothers and fathers can bring their kids down and enjoy a good time." (This material is really starting to sound a bit forced).
Lehmann and Danielle Hazell (women's Head Coach) have taken the trouble to get their stories straight. They're both keenly aware of the dangers of overintellectualising Hundred tactics.
Lehmann: "you don’t want to complicate it"
Hazell: "We shouldn’t over-think it"
They're also in agreement about the criteria for determing whether a bowler should or shouldn't bowl a Super Ten.
Lehmann: "If your match-ups suit then someone will bowl 10 balls in a row"
Hazell: "It will be about assessing match-ups as to whether you go with a five-ball or a 10-ball over ... it will need a quick assessment of the match-up"
I thought I was fairly up on franchise argot, but these match-ups are new to me. Are they a thing? Would it be like if a batsman has just hit five consecutive sixes, a captain might doubt the wisdom of keeping the bowler on for another five deliveries? And in so doing, make a quick assessment of the match-up. Without over-thinking it.
Justin Langer could just as easily have been referring to the Hundred when he said about the decision to omit Steve Smith after a failed concussion test: "At the end of the day it's a no-brainer."
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Bazpan
2nd XI player
Posts: 191
County club member: Kent
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Post by Bazpan on Aug 22, 2019 16:13:22 GMT
"Establishing organisational and governance structures to support a digital way of working and develop governance for product delivery that effectively manages the delivery of product strategy that identifies priorities and critical initiatives, understanding their interdependencies and resource requirements."
As you may have guessed from this job description extract, the ECB needs a new Director of Data and Digital, though not as much as their personnel department needs someone who can write English. "develop governance for product delivery that effectively manages the delivery of product strategy" ... "develop governance for product delivery that effectively manages the delivery of product strategy" ... It's no use. It seems to yield even less meaning each time I read it. I'm now starting to doubt whether 'delivery' is even a word.
ecb.ciphr-irecruit.com/templates/CIPHR/jobdetail_2615.aspx
Some other highlights (there's much, much more in this style):-
iterate our approach across a federated, aggregated audience
lead and deliver our data and digital vision, and drive our detailed commercial strategy
our digital transformation journey
manage our existing digital portfolio and grow our digital offering
new ways of working that increase the data capture
delivering a commercial insights strategy that leverages existing data and develops future opportunities to generate valuable data
Embedding a digital mindset across the business by working with other functional and business unit leads
Acting as the leader and key ambassador for the data and digital function
support marketing campaigns and strategies to improve product adoption/engagement, brand awareness, and growth
Building on the strong existing content portfolio to develop an ‘always-on’ approach
empowering teams to take ownership of product development
defining and delivering a vision for a customer-focused data
evangelical about the opportunities of digital
The Hundred gets a couple of mentions:-
the opportunity to shape The Hundred - one of the largest ‘start-ups’ in UK sports history, and by design a digital-first competition
Owning the development and maintenance of all digital faces to Customers: including ECB.co.uk and the app and web portfolio for The Hundred
Could this competition get any more modern? We knew we were getting decimal cricket - now it's going to be digital-first by design. I believe that means the coverage will be predominantly via websites, apps, Facebook, Twitter and so on; rather than old media such as print, radio and television. Couple of things strike me about that. To say that the Hundred has been designed to be digital-first is a bit fatuous. There's nothing about the competition that makes it intrinsically suitable for dissemination by digital media. You could just as easily distribute Timeless Test content by apps and social media in preference to TV and radio.
Besides, all the ECB hoop-la about broadcasting revenue didn't sound like an organisation getting out of TV futures. Well that's nonsense of course, and the ECB can't possibly mean what they say with this digital-first thing. Following a match on phones and tablets is better than nothing when you're out and about, but cricket fans will always want to watch games on television where possible. The Hundred is likely to be even more digital-last than existing competitions. I'm sure we all use our phones to keep tabs on matches we're interested in via Cricinfo and so on; possibly Sky Go. But the Hundred doesn't even seem to be intended to inspire that kind of following. I think it was Tom Harrison who disparaged existing cricket fans as 'obsessives'. Andrew Strauss commented that "We want the more casual audience". Some people will go to the games if it's convenient, and some will watch the Hundred on TV, just because it's some cricket and/or because of the bludgeoning promotion it's going to get. But it's difficult to picture people feverishly pawing their phones to get the latest Hundred scores when they're away from a television. They're just not going to care about it enough. Well anyway, that job description reads as though the ECB's digital output is essentially a data-harvesting operation in the guise of an information resource.
Incidentally, I wonder if the Hundred's creators considered going a stage further in abandoning cricket's old imperial measures. Ten-man teams perhaps ... or 20-metre wickets ... boundaries worth 5 or 10 runs. They could have called it Metricket. At least you could have looked it up online without having to wade through all the cricket-related instances of the word 'hundred' that didn't refer to the Hundred. For such a digital competition, that was a pretty average job of search engine optimisation when they came up with that name.
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Post by flashblade on Aug 23, 2019 7:09:42 GMT
Thanks, Bazpan. It must have taken some patience to wade through that job description.
I'm getting more relaxed about this wretched competition - its failure is safely in the hands of some very strange people.
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Post by sussexforever on Aug 29, 2019 10:19:08 GMT
2 new coaches announced in Jayawardene and Edwards but only 2 existing PR buzzwords used in 'innovative' and 'families'. Maybe they've been reading Bazpan's analysis?
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Post by sussexforever on Aug 29, 2019 12:38:58 GMT
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Post by flashblade on Aug 29, 2019 12:56:43 GMT
Well said, Ben. Telling it like it is. |
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Post by Wicked Cricket on Aug 29, 2019 18:07:26 GMT
The cynic might argue that it's sour grapes from Brown. His batting hasn't the array of shots to play T20 successfully, so has little
chance of being picked for a '100' City side, whilst team-mates like Wright, Evans, Salt, Mills, Rawlins, Wiese, Jordan, Beer and Briggs
have every opportunity of making an additional handsome crust.
Brown will pose a lonely figure when he Captains a 2nd or even 3rd XI Sussex 50 over side during the '100' tournament.
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Post by flashblade on Aug 29, 2019 18:26:29 GMT
The cynic might argue that it's sour grapes from Brown. His batting hasn't the array of shots to play T20 successfully, so has little chance of being picked for a '100' City side, whilst team-mates like Wright, Evans, Salt, Mills, Rawlins, Wiese, Jordan, Beer and Briggs have every opportunity of making an additional handsome crust. Brown will pose a lonely figure when he Captains a 2nd or even 3rd XI Sussex 50 over side during the '100' tournament.And that's a depressing prospect for any true cricket lover. I can't believe you're looking forward to life at the County Ground next summer? |
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Bazpan
2nd XI player
Posts: 191
County club member: Kent
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Post by Bazpan on Aug 30, 2019 1:32:41 GMT
2 new coaches announced in Jayawardene and Edwards but only 2 existing PR buzzwords used in 'innovative' and 'families'. Maybe they've been reading Bazpan's analysis?
Solid stuff from Mahela Jayawardene on the families-Hundred interface: "I think it will be brilliant for the kids ... good for families. It will be great for the kids ... It’s a great way to encourage a younger generation to cricket."
He returned to this theme later in the interview, as though he'd been nudged by an ECB bigwig hissing "Say some more stuff about kids!". Robotically, Jayawardene added "I’m sure the youngsters will be very excited for the competition with the best players. Hopefully one day they will want to be a part of the teams."
Well I'm going to look pretty stupid when parents on this forum start posting about how the idea of scoring a century in the Ashes means nothing to their children; instead they dream of not going for too many while bowling a Super Ten for Southern Brave. (Is it possible to have too many kids at a cricket match? It sounds as though the Hundred demographic is going to resemble the audience at a performance of Annie).
Jayawardene isn't the first Hundred coach to talk up the Timeout as an opportune moment to leave the tactics just as they are.
Lehmann: "you don’t want to complicate it"
Hazell: "We shouldn’t over-think it"
Jayawardene: "We try to keep it really simple"
If coaching Hundred teams is that easy, the ECB will start to wonder just what it is that they're getting for their £200,000 per franchise.
Charlotte Edwards seems more excited about the prospect of players standing around doing nothing for two-and-a-half minutes: "It just adds that bit of drama to the game". Of course in the IPL the Ceat Tyres Strategic Timeout is reputed to be put to darker purposes, but hopefully in the Hundred it will add nothing but ads.
Between now and 20th October, Edwards is going to have to remember some players that (a) she rates, (b) are female, and (c) haven't retired. In answer to the question "Who would be your dream draft picks?", all she could come up with was "My male player would be Virat Kohli. If I could pick any female player it would be Karen Rolton but she’s not playing anymore!". In its unprepared uselessness, that's just about the first answer a Hundred coach has given that hasn't sounded like it was handed to her on a piece of paper.
Charlotte cemented her position as my favourite Hundred coach with a wistful-sounding remark about grass-roots support for the new competition: "Hopefully they’ll be able to identify with a team ... ". (She can't easily see why they would, but there's always hope).
She went further off-message by echoing Shane Warne when he misspoke about what event-marketing people refer to as 'dwell time'.
Warne: "It's a great day out for the family"
Edwards: "a really good day out for their family"
Don't call it 'a day out'! You'll put people off. 'A day out' calls to mind that utter waste of time known as the Royal London One-Day Cup. The Hundred is just 'a couple of hours out'. That's the whole point of it.
Is Sussex the only county whose players dare express scepticism about the Hundred? Luke Wells makes some sensible, measured comments via the breath-gulping medium of the multi-post Twitter thread. He's not certain that the Hundred is a lousy idea, but he can't easily see the need for it and is clearly worried that it will be damaging to a game that's giving a good account of itself without the need for such gimmicks.
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Post by Wicked Cricket on Sept 1, 2019 21:16:22 GMT
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Post by flashblade on Sept 2, 2019 7:57:12 GMT
I was delighted that the crowd at Hove yesterday voiced their disapproval of the Mighty Ton.
Don't forget that this was a crowd of many 'women and girls' who resent their KSL competition being sacrificed on the altar of certain mens' egos.
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Post by flashblade on Sept 2, 2019 8:18:01 GMT
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