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21 August 2021 Today I saw my first 'The Hundred' match. It so happened to be the final for this year's season. It has not disappointed. So just what is 'The Hundred'? Well it is cricket but designed to be played quickly. There are 100 balls for each team. The first establishes the goal in numbers of runs. For today's final between the Oval Invincibles and Sothern Brave ladies teams, the target was set at 121 runs. It takes about an hour for 100 balls to be thrown. There is an initial stage called the power play. This is where there are only 2 fielders outside of a specific boundary. It lasts for 25 balls and is designed to encourage some big hitting play. After that, women get 4 fielders outside of this specific boundary while men get 5. I am not sure why there is a difference but there is. Alongside the game change, there is a match day format which is where it works well. A match day consists of a women's game and a men's game. Matches seem to be played late afternoon into evening which is more family friendly and certainly avoids the reputation of test cricket which takes 5 days. On top of this, there are 8 city based teams dotted around England with a single team in Wales. Players are selected from drafts and there are lots of limits on international picks, youth picks and so on. It seems a good approach. I love the fact they have both women's and men's matches on the same day. There are also discounted tickets priced at �10 (US$14 ish) for the group matches. It seems a bargain and I will be looking to be in the stands next season. Cricket is an interesting game. It is hard to watch over lots of days but can be fun to see how the teams are going over those days. It is certainly fun to play with some big swinging hits or defensive hits. Bowling is an art I cannot work out but it is impressive to watch people make it spin all over the place. I only really played in school and enjoyed sitting outside in the sun. It made a change from the mud bath rugby offers in the autumn term. I got into T20, another shortened form of cricket while in India on holiday. I caught a few IPL matches in various bars and got frustrated at not being able to catch matches in the UK without spending money on Sky Sports. Near enough all cricket has ended up on Sky Sports until The Hundred. Now it is shared between the BBC and Sky Sports so you should be able to catch half of the matches on free TV. There is a naff side to The Hundred. The colour scheme for everything is neon green and pink. There is a music performance when teams swap from batting to fielding. This can lead to the entertaining tone issue as seen today with a top 20 chart nonsense trying to perform at 4pm and a crowd who are simply not interested. There were a few people clapping along. It made me laugh. Everything is calculated to attract people who are not interested in cricket to become interested. So who can blame the odd design choices aimed at encouraging children into cricket? If you get a chance, watch a game. There are a few videos to help you get up to speed. This is certainly not the cricket I grew up with where it was old men in the stands napping while guys in white slowly mulled around, possibly throwing a ball every 10 minutes for days on end. There are no tea breaks, few call offs for rain or boring county names for teams. Instead we get a vibrant, exciting game with a diverse crowd providing an atmosphere and something fun to watch. Strategy is still key with plenty of upsets occuring. => https://www.thehundred.com for the main competition website