England Cricket Chief Tom Harrison Backs the 'Hundred' Tournament Despite Virat Kohli's Concerns

England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief, Tom Harrison believes that the world’s top cricketers will take part in the new Hundred tournament starting from next year, despite concerns from Indian National Cricket team skipper Virat Kohli.

Meanwhile, Harrison has insisted the eight-team competition in which matches will be 100 balls per side, is central to plans to develop the English game between 2020 and 2024. Tom Harrison also announced the ECB planned to spend £180 million on The Hundred over the next five years.

“I think we will be very successful in getting players to come over,” Harrison told reporters in London on Monday when asked if the world’s best cricketers would take part in a new event given their extensive international commitments and participation in lucrative Twenty20 tournaments such as the Indian Premier League(IPL) and Australia’s Big Bash League (BBL).

“I think it will be a good training ground for international Twenty20,” added Harrison.

Indian skipper Virat Kohli, who recently led India to their first Test series win in Australia, regards the five-day game as the summit of international cricket.

“I’m already very…I wouldn’t say frustrated but sometimes it can get very demanding of you when you have to play so much cricket regularly. I feel somewhere the commercial aspect is taking over the real quality of cricket and that hurts me,” Kohli said in an interview with Wisden Cricket Monthly in August last year.

“I don’t want to be a testing sort of a cricketer for any new format,” he added.

Although the names of the eight teams, and the players who will be available, is yet to confirm, it is known eight of England’s existing 10 Test match grounds will stage games.