Here's my view, I think the format is daft.
However I am upset that this has been railroaded through at the expense of the Blast, a very successful and profitable tournament, at the expense of the 50 over competition, just after we became world champions and at the expense of the county championship at a time when it is more popular than ever.
Test cricket bankrolls English cricket. We need a successful team to support that. As a result putting the 4 day games in April and September is utterly insane. There is no chance of us having a successful team long term with this, plus it will ruin squares.
The other thing that upsets me about this is that the ECB has blown the entire capital reserves on a massive gamble, driven by marketing and unpublished market research.
This is appalling.
Plus as said above it is alienating the majority of cricket fans.
It will take me longer to get to a match than a match will last, and my wife and kids are notionally the tarket market for this. Travel will cost them over £100.
It is just daft.
I'm not even a traditionalist - I don't particularly watch county cricket and have always lobbied for new ideas to adopted. But these ideas are just BAD. Everything about the 100 is just like a list of the dumbest ideas someone could come up with. I'm constantly amazed at how little the ECB seem to know about what makes sports leagues prosperous and successful.
Imagine if the MLB did this?
Reduce the number of venues - scrap half the teams, leaving millions of people without a team to support
Shorten the game in the most inefficient way possible - Replace a 9-inning game with an 8-inning game in order to save 10 minutes, but then add in extra advert breaks to use up all that extra time!
Mess with the rules for no apparent reason - odd numbered innings you only need 2 outs to retire the side
Destroy years of history and tradition - Abolish the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox and replace with the East River Nobodies and Massachusetts Tea Parties and then mix all the players up.
Arbitrarily change a bunch of the terminology - strikes are now "in-zones", balls are now "out-zones". Confusingly, the strike zone is still called the strike zone.
Waste your entire financial reserves - undermine a profitable tournament with one that you yourselves forecast is going to lose money
Burn all your goodwill - your existing fans should be your sports greatest ambassadors. Piss them off at your peril.
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Topic: Breaking News: ECB to dumb down cricket even further... (Read 27436 times)