It’s approximately midday on Saturday 4th August 2024 and I am sat in an already packed Eric Hollies stand at Edgbaston for the women’s Birmingham Phoenix versus Southern Brave hundred game. Everything here is very loud. For example, all the tannoy announcements. A lot of them are about the crowd ‘making some noise’ for a particular match event or player. Many of the crowd are in fancy dress and seem happy to pay seven pounds for a pint of beer or fifteen pounds for an unfeasibly small portion of fish and chips.

This is most disorientating for me. Since the early 1980s I have followed Warwickshire CCC (previously the sole incumbents of Edgbaston) home and away. County Championship games typically would see about fifty people in the Hollies even for games against the ‘bigger’ teams like Lancashire or Yorkshire. As the one day competitions became increasingly popular there would be many more spectators of course but nothing compared to this.

It seems fewer and fewer people are enthused by the longer format of cricket despite its ability to still throw up some incredible games. The obvious illustration of this is the England test team on a fairly regular basis. However even in the relative obscurity of the County Championship Division Two and as recently as last month a little patience can bring great reward. Glamorgan and Gloucestershire managing to tie there game on the last ball of the final day with Glamorgan chasing a world record second innings score of 593 to win.

Back in the heaving Hollies the final ball of the Birmingham Phoenix women’s innings is greeted with thousands of people rhythmically clapping as the bowler runs in. Back in the 1980s Country Championship any such behaviour would be viewed as interfering with the batsmen’s concentration and as such frowned upon. After a very short turn round the Southern Brave appear to bat. When the umpire fails to give what appear to be fairly routine decisions the decision review system intervenes to correct the error. The world has moved on.

The break between the women’s and men’s game is a mammoth forty five minutes. An eternity at this sort of event. Any fear that you may become bored is soon erased though. If the singer isn’t entertainment enough there is every fast food known to humanity beyond the aforementioned fish and chips or more alcohol from the well stocked bar or self service pumps.

The players on display in the men’s game once it starts are largely of the A list variety. Liam Livingstone, Ben Duckett, Moeen Ali, Chris Jordan and Jordan Archer to name just five of the English contingent. Unfortunately for the home crowd the run chase falls flat but even this does little to dampen the enthusiasm. Not even Duckett narrowly failing to become the fourth player to score a hundred in The Hundred can do that.

So, what does all this mean? It’s undeniable that as a form of entertainment it’s a fine day out. By the same token it’s far removed from the cricket anyone under forty would have grown up with. Certainly no batsman would be looking to ‘play themselves in’ for example. Despite a fantastic effort from the marketing department who had managed to sell a good number of replica Phoenix shirts it will surely take some time for supporters to identify with the team in the way they do with long established county teams or football clubs. Having said that what is the point of a County Championship competition that nobody actually watches? In a packed cricket calendar it’s certainly something the English and Wales Cricket Board will need to ponder long and hard.