Posted by The IPL has been such a colossal success, it makes total sense to slavishly copy every aspect of it so that it’s much easier for everyone to make direct comparisons and see exactly how your short format competition pales in comparison. The Hundred’s going to start having auctions, everyone!
If you were to ask UK sports fans which aspect best sums up the worst qualities of the IPL, a large percentage of people would say the auctions.
Even if it doesn’t exactly stand up to much scrutiny any more, most of us in this country still have a notion of sports teams as being defined by (a) the regions they represent and (b) the people who go out on the field to play the game. Football and county cricket clubs’ identities are to a great extent built on their best-known and longest-serving players, many of whom will also have been locals.
Given that it demands the players are intermittently rounded up for redistribution, a player auction absolutely flies in the face of this. Each reboot of human resources means fans are subsequently invited to either (a) continue supporting a team which will now have a strikingly different on-field presence, or (b) switch allegiance to follow a favourite player at a different club.
For a lot of people, neither of these options quite sits right.
But that’s what the IPL does, and the IPL is massive, and IPL teams now own a bunch of Hundred teams, so that is what The Hundred is going to do.
How will it work?
Hundred franchises were permitted to sign or retain up to four players each prior to the auction. To give one example, Manchester Giants have retained well-known Mancunians Jos Buttler, Noor Ahmad, Heinrich Klaasen and Liam Dawson.
Admittedly, they’ve also kept hold of Sophie Ecclestone, who is at least from the North-West, and if you look around the other teams you can just about perceive the faintest air of regional identity if you squint hard enough: Harry Brook at Sunrisers Leeds, say, or Will Jacks at MI London – although that’s about it. (Speaking of regional identity, where do we stand on the name ‘Mumbai Indians London’? The most generous assessment is that it constitutes a delightfully broad celebration of contemporary urban multiculturalism.)
Other than the four player allowance, everyone else has gone back in the bag and an auction will be held in London on March 11 and 12.
The IPL auction is a huge deal and this one will be just like it, only the sums will be smaller, and there won’t be quite as many top players, and the franchises they’ll be signing to will be B-grade feeder teams for the proper ones in the bigger tournament.
Once again, the big selling point here seems to be that this is the same as the IPL, only less. Personally, we’d aim higher, but The Clone Roses, Oasish and The Faux Fighters will tell you there’s a living to be made with this kind of thing.
Surely at some point there’s just one mega-auction and players who are ‘owned’ by Mumbai Indians then also play for the other ‘MI’ teams around the world, and so on?
If not then even the ‘branding’, the only thing (other than contracts with TV companies and permission to use established venues) becomes (even more) meaningless. Players are in danger of actually forgetting which team they are playing for, in which competition…..
“Players are in danger of actually forgetting which team they are playing for, in which competition…..”
Given they’re already at the stage of not caring who they’re playing for, it seems churlish to expect them to actually know.
And since they don’t care, I fail to see why I should.
Spot on
I can’t wait for Mumbai Indian Australia vs England Super Kings in 2027
Cricinfo reports that players involved in the Hundred final will have at best one day’s red ball training before the Test series against Pakistan begins (there’s 2 days between the final in London and the first test in Leeds). No speculation on how hungover any of the players from the winning team will be…
At least it seems unlikely to affect Stokes, who didn’t play in the Hundred last year, who is quoted on the prospects of his involvement in this year’s competition: “I didn’t miss playing it this year”.
*last year. Doh!
I am very pleased, nay, proud, to admit I have never watched a single match, or even accidentally clicked onto a Hundred match, preview, scorecard, or whatever.
It is true that to legitimately criticise something (life’s horrific incidents aside of course) , one has to have experienced it first. However, I think I am on very safe ground to criticise the Hundred (my criticism being that it’s ****) based on what I’ve read of the format and learned people’s views of said format.
I must apologise for the gratuitous grammatical error in my last post. It should have read…
“I am very pleased, nay, proud, to admit I have never watched a single match, or even accidentally clicked onto a Hundred match, preview, scorecard, or whatever.
It is true that to legitimately criticise something, one has to have experienced it first, life’s horrific incidents aside of course. However, I think I am on very safe ground to criticise the Hundred (my criticism being that it’s ****) based on what I’ve read of the format and learned people’s views of said format.”
…and I’m looking like a toilet again. 🙁
I am delighted to inform you that The London Spirit franchise will be “Bold, Driven and United” – these are the values that will inform all that our franchise does.
Clearly this is at variance with all the other franchises, which must be a cowardly, disengaged and factious rabble by comparison.
Sunrisers Leeds are “ready to play with fire”. Surely “… with cricketing equipment” would be more useful, but who knows.
Ah yes, playing with fire, something that famously never leads to problems.
Yes. Plus you’d think “ready to play with fire” would be a better slogan for Birmingham Phoenix, or indeed Welsh Fire. Maybe it should have a capital ‘F’, and indicates that Leeds are ready to play Wales, but they need a bit more practice before they’re ready for the other teams.
Having seen quite a few of the team coaches near the Lowry Hotel in Salford over recent years, I have to inform you that the majority of the teams are Driven from their hotels to away grounds.
Would 100% support the franchise that billed itself as cowardly, disengaged and factious to the extent that we would almost certainly feel inspired to meaningfully engage with the tournament.
Qualities anyone could get behind.
That would be great. Which county would be best candidate? I’d say Yorkshire would be in with a shout for being factious, except there’s already a team based at Headingley. Perhaps Sheffield or Bradford could launch their own.
The Sheffield Sheepish Splitter Sods.