The Hundred is a professional franchise 100-ball cricket tournament involving eight men’s and eight women’s teams located in major cities across England and Wales. The tournament is run by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and took place for the first time in July and August 2021.
The format was invented to attract younger and more diverse crowds to watch cricket, with the expectation that the shorter format will mean each match lasts around two-and-a-half hours. The BBC showed free-to-air broadcasts of the competition, while all of the women’s matches and some of the men’s matches were available to stream for free on Sky Sports’ YouTube channel.
The tournament gave equal weight to both men’s and women’s sides, with almost all the matches taking place as back-to-back double-headers at the same venue on the same day. One ticket gave access to both the men’s and women’s games, while men and women shared the same prize money.
