How we plan to cover The Hundred on The Cricketer's digital channels... and why

Digital editor SAM MORSHEAD explains how The Cricketer's digital platforms will approach the new competition, ultimately using 2021 as a chance to understand both the format and its potential knock-on effects

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a new cricket tournament starting on Wednesday and, as a media outlet specialising in cricket, we’re going to cover it.

We do so, of course, with very real reservations about the revised domestic structure The Hundred is, flirtatiously and from a distance, threatening to impose on its generations-old counterpart.

We do so fully aware of, and occasionally dizzied by the competition’s gimmicks.

We do so disappointed that we, as existing cricket fans, were neither consulted in its conception nor valued as anything more than collateral damage until disaster struck in the form of a global pandemic. 

We do so having received the first abject press release far too close to April Fool’s Day 2018, and many more scattergun communications since. 

We do so as sceptics, but trying to keep an open mind.

That might be out of necessity - ultimately The Hundred now has to succeed (whatever success actually is) - but our minds remain open for two more reasons.

^{The Hundred begins on Wednesday}

Firstly, The Hundred is a cricket tournament in England and Wales and, as an outlet dedicated to coverage of cricket - primarily in this country - it demands our attention, if not our respect. 

Secondly, if it does ‘succeed’, and through its profile the sport attracts new eyes, hearts and minds, we at The Cricketer must be in a position to offer a bridge to the wider game, to the county game we love, to what you might describe as ‘proper cricket’.

By refusing to engage in the first place, we may just alienate a generation. And what good would that do?

So over the next six weeks, there will be a considerable amount of Hundred coverage on The Cricketer’s digital channels.

We will treat the competition in a grown-up way, analysing performances, trying to figure out how this latest format of our beautiful game is won and lost, and looking to establish just how much of a sociological impact it has had on crowds around the country.

We won’t spend time pushing DJ schedules, but we understand why they are there.

We won’t offer a trading card swapshop, but we know how it might help.

We will talk match-ups and strike rates, vox pops and demographics. We will find out what the tournament means to the people who have bought tickets, and whether enough tickets have been bought. 

And in the meantime, we will not dilute our coverage of county cricket: there will be a report from every Royal London Cup match, courtesy of the ECB Reporters Network, and bags of county feature material besides as Nick Friend roams the outgrounds.

This year is about balance and understanding exactly what it is we are dealing with.

So, please, see The Cricketer’s digital coverage in the round over the next five weeks.

Engage with the parts you want to engage with; remember there are human beings at the other end of your tweets; let us cover cricket for everyone.