The crowd on Trent Bridge slowly built up during the double header. Photo: Getty Images/Nathan Stirk
«This year's champions will be crowned in just 27 days!» With this explanation over the Trent Bridge loudspeaker, the 2023 Men's 100 is over.
27 days in total: not everyone feels that way. After one of the most intoxicating series of ordeals of all time, many view the arrival of the 100 as the same as after dinner with a Michelin star with a dirty late-night kebab. The very existence of the 100 is, of course, the main reason Ashes 2023 ended before August arrived.
Of course, there is an alternative point of view. This year's schedule may have helped the Ashes performance far more than it hindered it, allowing the entire series to play out between the Champions League final and the Community Shield, with Test cricket dominating the sporting landscape.
The Ashes of 2005 ended on 12 September: autumn was approaching and new cricket fans had to wait seven months to play a game or, barring the final agony of the county season, watch it. This time it's different. New cricket fans have a whole month of August to play. Although Ashes was broadcast exclusively on pay TV, the 16 men's and women's 100 matches are broadcast live on the BBC.
While The 100 is presented to many at Trent Bridge on Tuesday's opening day as cricket's culture war, the new format could coexist happily with the Test game. The most commonly seen in the stands was a Trent Rockets jersey with «Root 66» written on it: a fashion that owes nothing to his home record of four games and 34 runs and all his Test match exploits.
The kickoff time of 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday didn't seem right for the pink and green fireworks that marked the start of the third draw of the competition. But if the first two years began with separate matches, then this year the tournament was with a double title from the very beginning. The afternoon women's game between the Trent Rockets and the Southern Braves was low-key, especially with overcast skies and the hosts kicking an inflated wicket; Indian star Smriti Mandhana lifted the Southern Brave to an unbeatable 157 out of six with a superb batting performance.
As the crowd grew — 8,800 were in place in the middle of the chase in the women's game and 12,400, a few thousand short of the full house, in the men's game — the atmosphere became a bit more partisan. Halfway through the Southern Brave's win in the men's game, the crowd erupted in applause as the big-screen predictor showed Trent Rockets as the favorite.
They almost lived up to that score as Daniel Sams left. the pace of the arms ended with a six-run win. After his defeat on the day of the T20 final, Sams, like all the foreign players represented at the show, flew to Texas to play in Major League Cricket: an illustration of the Hundred's problem in finding a place not only on the English calendar, but on the world calendar. one.
Unlike most of the men's hundred matches last season, this was a tense game. However, due to the fact that both sides broke the unusually difficult surface of the batting, it was not exactly a vintage option. Nevertheless, inspired by the home victory, the audience seemed pleased. “I liked it,” one girl told her father after Trent won in six races.
Despite all the malice, this simple pleasure — and the thousands of kids queuing for autographs long after the game — should be the main one.
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