With the first season of The Hundred over, the focus switches away from newly formed teams in gold, vivid red or bright blue, and back to the men's Tests, England's women and the county game.
Cricket’s ‘The Hundred’ finale at Lord’s, saw Oval Invincibles crowned the first women's champions with Southern Brave winning the first men's title, in front of a crowd of nearly 25,000. With children and families sitting side-by-side among groups of ‘hard-core,’ cricket stalwarts, some 20% of the spectators across the tournament were children, a big jump on the Twenty20 Blast in recent years, with a total of 21% of tickets sold being bought by women.
Viewing figures were said to be impressive, fuelled by the exposure of free-to-air television. The 1.6 million people who watched the opening night broke the record for a women's cricket match as figures (for the women's game) continued to exceed projections.
The men's matches were up on the Blast. And, following its overall success, there is now talk of a boom in participation in both adult and junior. The tournament, which didn’t seem to missed the global superstars in its first inception, proved the perfect platform for new names to grab the headlines.
England legend and Brave coach Charlotte Edwards said: "I have had to pinch myself.
“We are playing domestic games in front of 10,000 people now and it is pretty normal. I had the best four weeks of my life watching these girls playing cricket, seeing the fans and seeing girls think cricket is cool."
The Hundred brought in young cricket fans to the game and is not going to budge from the school holidays. This new tournament is proving to be a great new addition to the County Championship, the One-Day Cup and the Blast.
