Every second counts - early takeaways from the Hundred bash
Bowlers have it better, timekeeping is key, women have equal billing as men… there's a lot to get behind
Reducing the number of deliveries a team needs to bat, without cutting the resources (i.e. wickets) at their disposal, usually sees the rate of scoring go up - just think T10, or any rain-affected five-over thrash you have been to. But that doesn't seem to have been the case in the early stages of the Hundred, admittedly when players are still working out how best to approach the format. In the men's competition, there have only been three totals above 150 (which is roughly the equivalent of 180 in a T20), and only two above 140 in the women's. Overall, there have been 14 half-centuries from 17 completed matches, and the only player to have got close to scoring a century is Jemimah Rodrigues.
"Every ball counts" is the tagline of the Hundred, but perhaps "every second counts" would have been more apt. Watching the opening stages, it has often felt as if timekeeping is meant to be one of the foremost skills on show; that the major reason T20 hasn't brought floods of new fans to the game in this country is not down to the arcane workings of the county system, or a (relative) lack or star signings, or the absence from free-to-air television, but rather a somewhat tardy over rate.
Has the Hundred reached the newbie fans it wanted to target?
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Sam Billings: Youngsters 'far better off' from playing in Hundred ahead of Blast quarter-finals
Indians at the Hundred: Jemimah Rodrigues sparkles, slow start for Shafali Verma
Hundred present linked to John Player past
The ECB's scrapping of the successful Kia Super League was one of the more perverse decisions around the creation of the Hundred. But giving the women equal billing with the men, as well as first use of the pitches, has helped create a genuinely uplifting narrative as well as an entertaining drawcard, while the presence of England players throughout the competition looks set to ensure high standards.
The in-game experience has clearly been pitched more at families and those potentially coming to a cricket match for the first time: DJ sets and live music, pitch-side interaction on the big screens, and a simplified scoreboard, counting up to 100 balls during the first innings and then down for the second. Anecdotally, and from watching on TV, there seems to have been a greater proportion of women and children coming through the gates, certainly for the early fixtures; however, the evenings have rung to the sound of here-for-beers chanting familiar to anyone who has ever been to a T20 Blast match.
Whether you think the new format is a ground-breaking moment for the game or a gimmicky rip-off of T20 cricket, the introduction of a pseudo-franchise tournament (because none of the new teams is technically a franchise) to the UK has certainly condensed the competition and turned up the temperature for those domestic players lucky enough to be involved.
Alan Gardner is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo. @alanroderick