Richard Thompson leans into the question, not away from it. The Hundred is causing chaos in the calendar. He knows it. He calls it a price worth paying.
The England and Wales Cricket Board chair has watched the domestic and international schedule buckle under the weight of a competition that arrived in 2021 and promptly demanded its own space. This summer, there were just two days between The Hundred final and the first Test against Pakistan at Headingley. Two days for players to switch from franchise colours to England whites.
For some, that gap already feels reckless. For Thompson, it is the line in the sand.
“Sacrifices have got to be made,” he told Sky Sports, defending a tournament that has redrawn English cricket’s financial map. “If we can take all of the debt out of the game, which we have, make a generation [of counties] which can reinvent themselves, that is a price worth paying.”
A squeezed summer, a richer game
The numbers explain his resolve. More than £500m was raised when stakes in the eight Hundred franchises were sold last year. That money has been pushed across the professional and domestic game, allowing some counties to clear crippling debts, others to pour funds into long-delayed infrastructure.
But the cash has come with a cost. To maximise The Hundred’s pull, July and August have been carved out as a dedicated window. No England fixtures. No late withdrawals. The national side can no longer pull players out of the competition to prepare for international series. If you’re contracted to a Hundred side, you play.
For bowlers like Josh Tongue, who described the turnaround as “crazy scheduling”, the strain is obvious. The Hundred final, then a Test match two days later. One format to another, white ball to red, different rhythms, different demands.
Thompson knows that line cannot be pushed any further.
“We were criticised that The Hundred finished and two days later we were playing a Test match at Headingley,” he said. “Imagine if that becomes one day – that can’t happen.”
Yet the calendar keeps groaning. Alongside The Hundred sit the County Championship, the T20 Blast and the One-Day Cup, the latter now effectively shunted into the shadows as a second-team competition while the main stars disappear into the new tournament.
“We are having to crowbar so much cricket in,” Thompson admitted. The word fits. Every spare date feels forced open, every window jammed with another fixture.
Still, in his eyes, England are in rare company. “There are only four countries in the world that have managed to create a window that can pretty much guarantee the financial success of their game – us, South Africa, India, Australia.”
The message is clear: this is what survival looks like in modern cricket. It is messy, imperfect, and unapologetically commercial.
Pride, professionalism and the three lions
Not all of Thompson’s frustration is about scheduling. Some of it is about standards.
As The Hundred drags attention and resources into the domestic game, questions continue to swirl around the professionalism of England’s men’s side. Those questions, he says, are “enormously” disappointing.
The latest flashpoint came with Brydon Carse. The fast bowler was left out of England’s squad for the second Test against Pakistan after being briefly arrested on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly while on duty with Durham. He was de-arrested, but investigations by both the police and the Cricket Regulator remain ongoing. Images on social media showed Carse in handcuffs, surrounded by officers.
For Thompson, incidents like this cut deeper than a simple disciplinary issue.
“When you play for your country you are judged by far higher standards,” he said. “What comes with wearing those three lions comes with respect, responsibility and pride.
“Unless you live and breathe those qualities there is a problem. Every player has to understand the responsibility that comes with playing for England.”
The Hundred, then, is only part of the equation. Money has been found, debts reduced, counties given a lifeline. The calendar is creaking, but the game is richer and, in theory, more secure.
The question now is whether England’s players can match that off-field resolve with on-field professionalism – and whether a sport already “crowbarred” into every corner of the summer can keep its soul while chasing financial certainty.
