The idea of 'The Hundred' competition seems to have appealed to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The outgoing chief of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), Colin Graves, claimed that his board's Indian counterparts have been "regular asking me" about the first of its kind 100-ball tournament in the UK.
The eight-team city-based tournament, which is Graves' ECB regime's brainchild to try and attract newer audiences to the game in England, will hit the floors next summer after being postponed from its original start this year due to COVID-19 pandemic.
“I know that some of the countries abroad, India in particular, are looking at their own,” Graves told Sky Sports. “They have been talking to me about it for the last year on a regular basis. So around the world it has created a lot of excitement."
While the BCCI has often come across a reluctant innovator, if the board does decide to create a tournament modelled on 'The Hundred', it will have to wait till at least the end of this FTP cycle running until 2023 World Cup.
With the ongoing pandemic doing major damage to the international and domestic fixture-list, there seems to no space available in the calendar for any new tournament to be launched.
Anyway, the board is doing really well in terms of finance, with the Indian Premier League (IPL) being the hottest property for sponsors and broadcasters.
Regarding 'The Hundred', Graves, who is hoping to become the next ICC chairman, said the project has been five years into planning.
“I think the biggest challenge was getting The Hundred off the ground. We had all the pushback initially but I think people are now starting to see the advantages of it."
“I think it is the right thing to be doing and will be a valuable asset to the ECB going forward, both from a profit perspective and playing point of view."
“I think people, certainly in cricket, don’t like change. I don’t think they realised we are trying to attract a new audience – women, children and families, which we never really had coming to cricket," he added.
