The Hundred: early days yet
The Hindu
Wisden said when the idea was mooted that “The Hundred hung over the English game suspended only by the conviction of a suited few…”
Questions might be asked about the need for yet another format in cricket, its fourth, but The Hundred in England has been about Jemimah Rodrigues so far. With two quite incredible knocks, 92 from 43 balls and 60 from 41, she guided Northern Superchargers to victories. Clearly this is one Indian who loves the format. But the questions remain. Does lopping off 20 deliveries, giving bowlers 10 deliveries per stint (or five; there are no ‘overs’) and a 25-ball PowerPlay make The Hundred a) all that different b) easier to understand or c) more likely to bring in a new set of fans who can’t watch sport without music, colourful graphics and strategic timeouts? More importantly, will the new fans come in at the cost of the existing ones, thus merely retaining the numbers if not actually reducing them? Wisden said when the idea was mooted that “The Hundred hung over the English game suspended only by the conviction of a suited few…”He has worn India’s blues, albeit in an Under-19 World Cup, with K.L. Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Harshal Patel and Jaydev Unadkat as his teammates. He has proudly adorned the Lion’s Crest — the famed Mumbai cricket logo — in all three formats. He has played with Yuvraj Singh, against Virat Kohli and Rahul Dravid and has the likes of Rahul and Joe Root in his illustrious list of dismissals. He is also a software developer for an IT giant, based in California. Virtually every middle-class Indian over the last three decades at some stage dreams of being either a cricketer or an IT professional. Saurabh Netravalkar has been combining two dreams, even after relocating to USA to pursue academics at the prestigious Cornell University in 2015.