Greame Swann feels hundred-ball cricket is being done because of TV rights

SportsCafe Desk
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English spinner, Graeme Swann has come out in open to oppose the hundred-ball cricket format and has suggested that the format has been cooked up by ECB to fit the TV schedule. He has also mentioned that Australians are preferred over England players because they are perceived to be superior.

Recently ECB has come up with a 100-ball format to make cricket more appealing to the younger generation. However, English spinner, Graeme Swann has different views on it and has suggested that the format has been only cooked up to fit the TV schedules and not because cricket doesn’t appeal to the younger audience. 

"It will be exactly the same as T20 cricket if they get the world's best players in it," Swann said on ESPNcricinfo's Talking T20 podcast. "There's the thing that Colin Graves is barking on about: 'It's because kids don't like cricket.' They do, Colin. Turn up at my cricket club where I take my son on a Friday night - there's 150 kids every week.

"[Hundred-ball cricket] is being done very blatantly to fit the TV , since there is only a small window to get the game on, so they've tried to squeeze it in."

The concept devised by ECB for competition in 2020 has been in discussion lately and still has to be approved by the players. Although the reduction from 120 balls per innings is minimal, it is thought the change will help to ensure games fit comfortably into a three-hour window.

"It's because of the TV rights," Swann said. "We need to get participation and need to get it on TV, so they are ready to given them small time slots, like they do for football games. So they want to squeeze it in to 100 balls [for these reasons]. But then to insult people's intelligence by claiming that it's something else? That's why there's uproar at the moment."

On the podcast, Swann insisted that Australians are favored over English players in IPL because they are perceived to better players in the T20 format. He also pointed out that the domination of Cricket Australia in the world of cricket has also been pivotal in influencing people’s opinion. 

"The difference between what the English players are worth [at the IPL] compared to the Australians who have gone for massively high prices is that Australian cricket has been the best in the world for a long time, so people automatically think they are better than everyone else. They are not necessarily better, but that's the perception at the minute. With all due respect to the people spending the money, they are not savvy cricket minds.

"[A lot of] the coaches are Australian, so they pick, I won't say their friends, but they pick the players they trust and coach in Australia. But trust me, in the next ten years, you'll end up with truly multinational teams everywhere, because the best players will end up in the same places."

And although there are 12 England players in the IPL this season - a sign of the ECB's changing attitude to the league, which clashes with the start of the English domestic season - Swann felt that first-class cricket in the UK still offered a fruitful pathway for most players. He stated that spinners in the UK don’t have high demand in IPL because franchises prefer cheaper homegrown spinners rather than spending fortunes on English players. He also lashed out at Alex Hales, who gave up red-ball contract and insisted that Hales has been able to play only because David Warner got suspended in the ball-tampering scandal.  

"Very few New Zealand, Australian or English spinners are out here, and that is because there is a lot of good homegrown Indian spinning talent who franchises can purchase for cheaper sums. If you are a spinner growing up in England at the minute, you don't think of the IPL.

"Alex Hales has given up on a red-ball contract, convinced in his own abilities to attract a massive price at the auction, and he didn't get picked up. He's only here because David Warner got caught [being involved with] scratching a ball with sandpaper.”

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