Henry Blofeld who recently retired as the voice of Test Match Special, said that English Cricket Board's plans to introduce 100-ball game to attract 'non-traditional cricket fans' is a waste of time and money. England director of cricket Andrew Strauss recently unveiled plans for a 100-ball game to make cricket attractive to all.
Blofeld said that he was worried about the future of test cricket. "This 100-ball thing - I don't understand. We've got Twenty20. Why are we trying to make the game appeal to people who don't basically like it? What goes on in the minds of administrators worries me. Because cricket was the last game to be taken over by money. It was always the poor relation, never crossed the Atlantic, so perhaps it stands to reason. It has been taken over by money and when that happens greed becomes almost a prevailing influence. It affects players to some extent, it affects committee rooms to a greater extent," he said.
The 78-year-old said he left Test Match Special because the programme has changed. "It has become more conversational and it's perhaps become too conversational, I don't know. It restricted me. I got less chance to describe things in the way that I wanted to. And also, when you've been doing a job for nearly 50 years, you suddenly realise you stick out a bit like a sore thumb and it's not quite the home you thought it was," said Blofeld.
