Surrey blast ECB for 'bashing' existing formats with 'inaccurate' Hundred data

Surrey have accused the ECB of “bashing” existing forms of cricket and taking data out of context after the board launched their new competition on Thursday.

The county game’s most wealthy club have blocked the ECB’s access to data on ticket sales they provided the governing body for the research that led to The Hundred.

The ECB launched the competition’s website, announced when the player draft would take place and revealed some data their research had revealed. It showed that those who attend cricket in the UK are overwhelmingly male (82 per cent), white (94 per cent), affluent (65 per cent ABC1) and have an average age of 50. Seventy-five per cent of families said they preferred a game that is finished by 9pm. The competition is designed to grow the game and attract a new audience.

The new competition’s managing director, Sanjay Patel, said on Thursday the ECB’s research included “100 million data points”, but Surrey chief executive Richard Gould has disputed the figures.

Surrey’s research of their T20 sales over the last three years shows that one third of attendees are between 25-34, the average age is 38 and only 18 per cent are over 55, one in five purchasers are women and family tickets made up more than 20 per cent of all tickets sold. This is clearly a smaller sample size than the ECB’s figures, which encompass all men’s professional cricket.

“We queried with the ECB the accuracy of the numbers because they seemed to be inaccurate and out of context and not relative to The Hundred,” said Gould.

“That is why we have provided some numbers so it is clear we are providing a young, diverse audience.

“There was frustration that the numbers used by the ECB seemed to be there to be critical of existing cricket and its fans in order to promote the idea for The Hundred. We immediately asked for clarity and put this block on the ECB using our data for statistical purposes until we get clarity on how that data is going to be used going forward.

“We want to know it’s not going to be taken out of context or used inaccurately to bash existing forms of cricket when that is unjustified, in in what is our biggest and most exciting summer ever. The Ashes and World Cup are going to be sell outs, our T20 sales are ahead of where they’ve ever been before. It would be inaccurate for the ECB to suggest that ticket sales are restricted to a small number of people. We have a very wide, diverse number of people watching cricket this year and that should be celebrated.”

The ECB and Surrey have had a fractious relationship over The Hundred which led to ECB Chairman Colin Graves threatening to remove the Kia Oval as one of the eight venues, but Gould insists the county are trying to make a success of the competition.

“When The Hundred happens we of course want to make a success of it, attracting big crowds, alongside all the other forms of cricket we play,” he said. "We are already working hard to achieve this, and we need to try and avoid these bumps in the road.”