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It was a story about English cricket that took flight in the final days of July. A viral clip that prompted headlines around the globe. A cut-through moment for a sport always hunting for them and unrelated to the international game.
Unfortunately for the England and Wales Cricket Board, it also had nothing to do with the Hundred, into its sixth edition, and everything to do with a Saltburn CC fielder accused of clicking his fingers.
The fight for attention continues for the 100-ball competition, which rounds off this weekend after undergoing a hefty makeover. The sale of stakes in all eight teams has brought in Indian Premier League owners, tech bros, Birmingham Phoenix investor Jude Bellingham and substantial paydays for the players.
The IPL-ification has been hard to ignore, with teams re-branding to MI (Mumbai Indians) London, Sunrisers Leeds and Manchester Super Giants. Cue the quest to develop these fresh identities, some slightly better than others.
Sunrisers made the early error of sharing a clip of their men’s side singing a new team song, read off sheets of paper, an awkward take on Leeds United’s Marching On Together. Ridicule was followed by the delete button. Traditions take time.
Trent Rockets – a brand largely untouched by investment management firm Cain – have been the standout side, topping both tables to reach Sunday’s finals at Lord’s. Sophia Dunkley and Ben Duckett have been among the runs but what’s been the secret?
Beyond the quality of the players there’s the link with Nottinghamshire, according to Mick Newell, director of cricket for the Rockets and the county side. Peter Moores is the men’s head coach of Notts and the Rockets, while Chris Read, who spent 20 seasons as a player at Trent Bridge, runs the women’s side in the Hundred.
“It definitely was a conscious effort to put people in around the team who know the area, know the club and would make players feel comfortable very quickly,” says Newell. “Even with private investment we’re running it in a pretty similar way to the way we were doing it before.”
The Rockets all-rounder Georgia Adams is full of praise for Newell and Read having joined after four seasons with Southern Brave. Her fresh start mirrors the changes to the tournament: she reached three Hundred finals at the Brave and captained the side, but was let go as the teams rebooted with an auction after the introduction of private investment. Brave, now associated with the IPL side Delhi Capitals, did not bid for her.
“It’s a team that I cared so deeply about,” says Adams. “Franchise cricket, for a lot of people, it’s just walking into an environment, trying your best to perform for the team and leaving. For me, Southern Brave was so much more than that, naturally with the link with Hampshire [whom Adams plays county cricket for].
“My initial thoughts were that I probably was a bit pissed off, if I’m honest. A bit of anger but also a bit of disappointment that a franchise that I felt like I did my utmost for didn’t even bid for me.”
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Adams says the connection between the Rockets and fans at Trent Bridge has been “epic” and is fully invested in the direction of her new side. But she wonders what impact rebranding elsewhere has had on supporters.
“Looking at the competition, it’s been quite sad. I remember watching a Sunrisers Leeds game and thinking, where is everyone? The ground’s empty. And from our memories of playing at Leeds, it was a tough crowd to be the away team at. It was quite a loud, rowdy place to play your cricket. Maybe with the change of branding, changing of names, changing of ownership, it probably has deterred some fans. Equally, I guess some fans are also following players now.”
The ECB has said that the number of tickets sold and issued for this year’s tournament was 550,000, 30,000 short of last year’s total. As Adams observes, Sunrisers’ crowds have dropped off significantly from 2025 figures, with an 18% decline in the average attendance for men’s games at Headingley. Positives can be found over in Cardiff where Welsh Fire enjoyed their best-ever day of attendance; MI London’s visit brought in a crowd of 11,796.
The governing body has attributed the drop in crowds to operational changes, with the responsibility for ticket sales switching to the individual teams. It has also pointed to how major Test series have boosted the Hundred’s numbers in the past. The competition’s most well-attended seasons, in 2023 and 2025, directly followed the Ashes and a visit by India, respectively. There has at least been a 7.5% rise in the average broadcast audience on Sky Sports and the BBC.
So this appears to be a transitional year – though the same term could be applied to the year before, when the new owners were waiting to take over. So when will we have the complete deal, a tournament that has fully clicked together? Will there need to be another year of transition if it switches to T20 in the future, thus making the name of the entire thing completely irrelevant? And at what point will the actual cricket go full Saltburn and take over the headlines? Sky says its standout piece of social media content from this year’s Hundred is Ravi Shastri introducing Bellingham at a Phoenix game. Six seasons on, we’re still playing the waiting game.
