Fire and Loathing: the Hundred and its pyrotechnics will strangle cricket

‘The Hundred is about opening up the sport, we hear, from the people who closed cricket off in the first place, and who have now realised that the money is elsewhere.’ Illustration: Robin Hursthouse/The Guardian

At 6.57pm on Wednesday 3 August, as the final notes of Freed From Desire by Gala (Full vocal club mix) lingered in the eaves of the Rose Bowl, Hampshire, as the lights of the smoke-shrouded player tunnel gleamed like nuggets of high carbon Llanelli anthracite – like fire, Welsh fire – Joe Clarke, top bracket signing, felt a droplet of sweat trickle down the grille of his tomato red helmet.

Slowly he turned to Tom Banton, first draft pick, with whom he would in the next few moments be yoked together on the face of the Hundred Matchday One, out there like mountaineers scaling that sheer sporting peak.