Old Trafford named as venue for 100-ball competition
Old Trafford has been named as one of the venues for the ECB’s new eight-team city tournament that will see a 100-ball competition take over from the Twenty20 format.
The competition will start in 2020 and has a working title of ‘The Hundred’. It is expected that games will be over within two and a half hours and is being marketed at families and younger children.
Tom Harrison, the ECB’s chief executive officer, said: “This is a fresh and exciting idea which will appeal to a younger audience and attract new fans to the game. Our game has a history of innovation and we have a duty to look for future growth for the health and sustainability of the whole game.”
The eight venues announced by the ECB are Lord’s, the Oval, Old Trafford, Edgbaston, Headingley, Trent Bridge, Cardiff and Southampton. Although ten of them won’t take part in the competition, each of the 18 county cricket clubs will received £1.3m in revenues a year from the competition.
The only T20 format to survive the ECB’s announcement is the Blast, which will now run earlier in the season.
The tournament will be promoted across broadcast partners, the BBC and Sky, and features men’s and women’s competitions.
The club recently announced record profits of £2.3m for 2017.
Increased ticket sales for the South Africa Test, along with the opening of the new Hilton Garden Inn hotel saw the club generate an operating profit of £2.347m.
