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Just as John Newman broke into his No 1 hit single Love Me Again at the Oval, the real headline act was 130 miles north raising his bat for a century.
It was inevitable that Ben Stokes would deliver the kind of belligerent “up yours” innings to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) suits on the night they ushered in a new era for the Hundred.
He was leading Durham to victory at Derby in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup without the fireworks, billionaire owners or bling of MI London vs Sunrisers Leeds. It was just a loyal county-cricket crowd with a smattering of school kids on their holidays grabbing the chance to see the one English cricketer with genuine cut-through.
“Nah, they said it’s not for me when they launched it and I’ve taken them at their word,” one supporter told me as we walked from Derby station to the ground when I asked whether he would watch the Hundred. He was the classic cricket follower who keeps the game going: a Leicestershire fan who is a member at Nottinghamshire and pops in to Derby whenever he can. He was also wearing a tour-group T-shirt from an England series in South Africa, the kind who cares about the Test team Stokes has left behind and does not fit the profile of the new audience the ECB trumpets when lauding the Hundred.
Down at the Oval, after battling the summer delays on the East Midlands Railway, the atmosphere was closer to the football World Cup’s half-time show than Derby’s village-hall feel. The occasion was more in keeping with a cricketer of Stokes’s grandstanding abilities.
It is curious why he does not want to play in the Hundred. His loyalty to Durham and love of playing with his county mates is admirable, but can be shown in other ways post-Test career. He walked away from a minimum of £250,000 for a month’s work when he did not put himself up for the Hundred auction, and although he has earned more than most cricketers, it remains a short career and is getting shorter for him. Maybe he is waiting for other franchise opportunities now his diary is clearer.
Or perhaps he simply does not like the hundred-ball format, preferring the grittier challenge of the red ball and, now the opportunity has arisen, grinding it out for a bloody-minded 108 from 123 balls while battling cramp at Derby in county cricket’s neglected 50-over competition. A crowd of about 1,300 made Derby look pretty full and he received a warm welcome, but how long will that carry its appeal, especially once Durham’s 50-over competition arrives at out-grounds in Darlington and Gosforth?
The Oval was not a sell-out but there were only a handful of empty seats for the first night of the MI London (pronounced My London) takeover under the gaze of its owners, the Ambani family, who wore replica shirts with their gold-leaf numbers on the balcony of the Oval pavilion’s Prince of Wales room. Rohit Sharma was among their guests. One tournament official had the job of shepherding VIPs to meet the Ambanis, and the family matriarch Nita was on the field with the MI London women’s team after their opening-day defeat. The owners may well be the soap opera of the tournament. Sanjiv Goenka, who added Manchester to his Lucknow franchise, has been known to berate his players on the field after defeats. These owners want a return on their cash.
The Ambanis rebranded the Oval Invincibles, winning a battle with Surrey, who had wanted at least some reflection of their heritage in the team name. As majority shareholders in the franchise, Surrey had a point, but with partners as powerful as the Ambanis there was only going to be one outcome. The Oval Invincibles were consigned to history. MI added London to its Mumbai, Cape Town and New York stable like a fashion house rather than a cricket team, and Surrey learnt that being the big boys in county cricket relates to nothing when dealing with the real money and power in this sport.
A shirt amnesty is on this summer at the Oval which allows supporters with old Invincibles tops to swap them for the MI outfit for free although, terms and conditions apply. It has to be last year’s version otherwise it is £70, please. The Sunrisers will be giving away shirts at their first two home matches at Headingley; the Manchester Supergiants will also be handing out 70,000 free replica tops, merchandise being the route to a young audience’s loyalty.
Ticket sales for this year’s Hundred were slow and it was a battle to sign up front-of-shirt sponsors for the teams not in London. Those were resolved with some last-minute deals and sales picked up to a point where the ECB expects similar crowd numbers to last year.
There were more women and children at the Oval than Derby, and there was genuine buy-in for the new teams; the crowd wanted MI to win, which they did, chasing down 144 with relative ease.
The stage from which Newman performed in the Tony Lock Stand was taken over by children dancing during the MI London innings and they will associate going to the cricket with fun and enjoyment; events on the field are largely secondary. It does not matter that transient franchise players such as Trent Boult and Ryan Rickelton, who were playing in the United States a few days ago, have to check the front of their shirts to remember which team they are playing for now.
Cricket can appeal to more than one audience, the Derby die-hard and the MI London shirt-wearing teenager. How long it continues and its effect on England’s cricket is the unknown. The £520m Hundred sell-off propped up counties such as Derbyshire, but the investors will want a return on their money. It is hard to tell how that happens without the competition expanding to more than four home games and further eating into the schedule, emasculating every other format.
Newman had a couple of No 1 hits 10 years ago but here he played to a largely indifferent crowd – not his fault, cricket ground dimensions are not easy for a performer to crack. Love Me Again felt apt for Stokes as a possible future message from him to England, or even from the Hundred to Stokes.
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