Last Updated: 28/04/20 7:49pm
The Hundred’s inaugural season is set to be formally delayed after a board meeting of the England and Wales Board Cricket Board on Wednesday night.
The fate of the new competition was discussed at a wider-reaching session last week, when all professional cricket in the country was pushed back to at least July 1 as a result of coronavirus.
That teleconference overran significantly and, rather than rush to a final conclusion, it was instead agreed that the issue of The Hundred would be picked up again during this week’s meeting.
There has been a growing consensus that pushing the competition back is not only the most realistic course of action, but one that offers the greatest chance of a successful launch, albeit a belated one.
0:35 Nasser Hussain said last week that he didn’t see the point of playing The Hundred behind closed doors this summer or without the best international cricketers
With behind-closed-doors cricket inherently at odds with the stated aim of winning new fans and bringing them into grounds for the first time and the prospect of overseas stars being either unable or unwilling to travel, there are fears of delivering a watered-down product.
The precise financial details of putting The Hundred on ice are unlikely to be settled at this stage – with the ECB mindful that the full impact of the pandemic has yet to become clear.
1:31 ECB CEO Tom Harrison says they are still hopeful of playing some England internationals as well as the T20 Blast later this summer, while the County Championship season is in doubt
What is clear, at least as far as ECB chief executive Tom Harrison is concerned, is that The Hundred concept will not be cancelled outright.
Questioned last week about its viability in a post-lockdown world, he said it was now more important than ever to push ahead and make it a profit-making project.
More than 180,000 tickets had already been purchased for matches during this year’s tournament.