The Oval offered to host a trial of cricket's new 100-ball format as soon as September.GETTY IMAGES
A trial event for the new 100-ball format "could take place" at The Oval as early as September, according to Elizabeth Ammon of the LONDON TIMES. Surrey County Cricket Club offered to host the experiment but the county is "waiting for confirmation" from Sanjay Patel, the managing director of the new tournament. No decisions have been made about the teams but Surrey believes it "could road-test the new format under floodlights in September to see what type of audience turns up." The England & Wales Cricket Board "already intends to have some trial matches early next summer," involving the men’s and women’s England pathway teams, but it is understood that some players have said that the format "needs to be trialled earlier so that decisions can be taken about whether to proceed." Professional Cricketers' Association Chair Daryl Mitchell warned that the disbanding of the women's T20 Super League after '19 and the women's elite competition being in the new 100-ball format is a "huge negative." Women players are concerned that the change in format means they will not "have the opportunity to play in an elite T20 tournament despite that being the format they play most internationally" (LONDON TIMES, 5/11).
RADICAL CHANGES: Ammon also reported Surrey CEO Richard Gould said that the 100-ball competition "must be for existing fans as well as a new audience and proposed radical changes to cricket's format are being laughed at." According to ECB officials, the eight-team competition, which will begin in July '20, is "aimed primarily at those who do not watch or even know about cricket" but Gould said that Surrey is "already bringing in that audience through the Twenty20 Blast." Gould: "For T20 here this year, we have sold over 30,000 tickets already and we know that, of those, 53 percent have watched cricket here before because they are on our database. But 47 percent are brand new." He "has reservations" about how relevant the new format will be across the globe. He said, "What I can't understand is, who else is going to play this format and therefore what does it lead to?" (LONDON TIMES, 5/12).
