"Will definitely go through with the 100-ball tournament," says ECB Chairman Colin Graves

England has come under severe criticism for their new idea.

Colin Graves pic credit Mail Online

Colin Graves, England Cricket Board (ECB) Chairman, has made it clear that the 100-ball tournament is on and his board will definitely go through with the idea. 

England's newest tournament starts from 2020, and will have 15 normal 6-ball overs and one 10-ball over games. The ECB believes the current way of cricket with its existent formats, is not attracting enough audiences in the United Kingdom. 

Colin Graves was quoted saying on the BBC Sports that, “It is not attracting the audiences, if it was we would not have that issue, the younger generation, whether you like it or not, are just not attracted to cricket. In all the work, surveys and research we have done, the younger generation wants something different"

“They want more excitement, they want it shorter and simpler to understand. Those are the things we have learned for this new competition and that is what we have to make it,” 

Ever since the concept was announced in April this year, the ECB has received a lot of criticism from all corners of the cricket world for inflicting a perception that it is giving up on what has worked. The United Kingdom is one of the biggest markets of cricket, with various communities living in there. 

But the ECB is quite stubborn in support of their idea. Colin Graves further reiterated, “One of the things the stakeholders said to us was not to take the audience away from Vitality T20 Blast. They didn’t want just another T20 tournament on top of what is existing,” 

“Sanjay Patel (the managing director) and his team have come up with something I believe that is really exciting. I think it is special, it is different, it is shorter. It is trying to attract the audience that we haven’t got at the present time.”

 
 

By Kashish Chadha - 15 May, 2018

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