Atherton Interviews Thompson

Thompson’s screeching U-turn on the Hundred continues. He also claims Richard Gould has also “tempered his view”.

It’s frankly extremely disappointing and it was a concern I raised at the HPR meetings at The Oval.

It can be seen here: https://youtu.be/2Y4X7dFM0a0

Thompson needs to remember that the women had a perfectly good T20 league long before the 100 scraped it. In fact if you had a Womens Blast running alongside the Men's you don't need the 100. It serves no useful purpose. And as for soding around with the Ashes well.......

Chinaman wrote:Thompson needs to remember that the women had a perfectly good T20 league long before the 100 scraped it. In fact if you had a Womens Blast running alongside the Men's you don't need the 100. It serves no useful purpose. And as for soding around with the Ashes well.......

I’m afraid this is where you show yourself to be miles out of touch. The 100 has been superb for generating interest in the women’s game. The former competition didn’t come close.

In George Dobell’s piece in the Cricketer Mag he says, matter of factly, that Surrey were essentially threatened by the ECB that if Richard Gould stayed in post, relations between Surrey and the ECB would deteriorate. They didn’t like him. It also says the ECB did the same with Durham and Somerset and it’s noticeable how 2 of these 3 clubs now have ex ECB CEO’s in place. I don’t understand how this isn’t a huge story.

Cee Gee wrote:

Chinaman wrote:Thompson needs to remember that the women had a perfectly good T20 league long before the 100 scraped it. In fact if you had a Womens Blast running alongside the Men's you don't need the 100. It serves no useful purpose. And as for soding around with the Ashes well.......

I’m afraid this is where you show yourself to be miles out of touch. The 100 has been superb for generating interest in the women’s game. The former competition didn’t come close.

My point is the 100 wasn't required to do it. A women's blast would have been more successful as it would have been played at all grounds instead of just 8. I'm not convinced that the audience watching the 100 women isn't largely comprised of those waiting for the men's event anyway.

The 100 format certainly wasn't needed but I think there were advantages for the womens' game in being precisely aligned with the mens' franchises, giving them better TV coverage and enabling double headers to take place. Maybe you could have had a women's franchise (for want of a better word) team before a county T20 but I doubt it would have happened in practice. I doubt also that 18 teams could have been cobbled together to support matches at all grounds.

It is the franchise aspect that I object to, not the format and from the point of view of the mens' game I'd dearly love to see the end of them but I would have to be a right old curmudgeon (Ok, even more than I am) not to recognise their one positive aspect. Whether that gain outweighs the damage done to the mens' game is another matter.

Surrey members should know enough of RT to understand he's pragmatic.  With the existing contracts in place, the ECB is essentially stuck with the 100 for the next few years.  In addition, it would be thoroughly unprofessional to rubbish the 'product' that's already taken up so much of the ECB funds.
I'm encouraged by RT's commitment to making sure that the 100 isn't going to dominate the schedule in future.
In the short term that's the best that can reasonably be achieved.