The Hundred is up, even at Lord's

"Please remain seated during an over," a sign on the top of a flight of stairs leading into the Compton Stand at Lord's reads. But what if the match does not involve overs? Only deliveries. As the Hundred keeps telling us, "Every ball counts." Not only do overs not count, they don't exist.

Deliveries come in "sets" of 10 before ends are changed. One bowler could send down all 10 balls in a set, or be changed after five. Bowlers can't deliver more than 20 balls in a game, and a team's innings is complete after 100. Hence what it says on the tin.

Those are the main differences between the Hundred and other forms of white-ball cricket. Quite why it has evoked such despair and angst from the game's hidebound classes is difficult to fathom. Maybe because people beyond the usual boundaries are taking an interest in it: a walk through the streets of Manchester on Sunday evening showed, through the windows of pubs and private homes, that many televisions were tuned to the men's game between Birmingham Phoenix and Manchester Originals at Edgbaston.

It's cricket, Geoffrey, just not as you knew it. Actually, it is. They've fiddled ever so slightly with the bowling algorithm, but leather still meets willow, catches still win matches, bowlers still need to put the ball in good areas, and it's still a funny game. You can have any cliche you like in the Hundred, as long as it's about cricket. In the most significant sense, it's cricket because you can bet on it. That is as true now as it was in 1814, when Thomas Lord established what we now call Lord's with the express purpose of cashing in on the game's booming gambling culture.

A better question is why the Hundred exists in a sport that has recently revitalised itself by cutting out the invariably dreary 30 overs in the middle of a List A innings: hey presto, T20! An answer is that an even shorter game was needed. The idea behind T20 was that a match could be completed in three hours. The reality is that games stretch well into a fourth hour. The Hundred? Two-and-a-half hours. Done. Or about as long as even the longest football match; extra time, penalty shootout and all. Another answer is that the Hundred's creators, the ECB, hope to be able to sell the concept. So far, with the Hundred deep into its second season, that hasn't happened. For now, "every ball counts" only for eight franchises in England.

Just about every ball did indeed count in the matches between London Spirit and Birmingham Phoenix at Lord's on Tuesday. The Londoners won the women's game by four wickets with three remaining, and Birmingham's men scampered home by a single wicket off the last delivery. Watching all that was a fine way to spend a beautiful late summer afternoon and evening, the kind that must make all far-flung English people in the world feel a fondness when they lay back and think of England.

Lord's was a postcard. Beyond the Nursery End, the sourdough pizza maker scrambled to keep up with demand, and the queue at the craft beer stall flowed as fast as the IPA. A breeze blew soft and playful over the scene, the floodlights gleamed like giant neon dandelions, and the sky blushed ever pinker over the Pavilion, putting even the Victorian edifice's opulent terracotta in the shade.

The Pavilion has stood as straight and silent as a butler in a grand house since 1890 and is Grade II* listed. Don't overlook the *. That means it is, by law, among "particularly important buildings of more than special interest". If that sounds to you like an excuse to impose even more rules, you're not wrong. Or, as a member of the South African touring party said the other week, "they have rules about rules at this place".

For instance, "members, guests and visitors" in the Pavilion on match days are "required to observe" a "formal standard of dress...at all times". What might that mean in 2022? For men: "Tailored jacket or blazer; collared shirt that is tucked into tailored trousers, chinos, corduroys or moleskin trousers; a tie or cravat; and formal shoes with socks which cover the ankle." For women: "Dress, skirt or tailored trousers with a top or blouse, or other clothing that is appropriately formal. Formal shoes, boots or sandals must be worn."

Got it. What are the don'ts? "Examples of attire that would result in a refusal of admittance to the Pavilion: jeans; any form of casual shoe and trainers; beach-style flip-flops; and dilapidated or offensive garments of any kind. This list is not exhaustive. Members or guests requiring exceptions to the dress regulations for reasons such as medical conditions must have prior authorisation, in writing, from the Pavilion manager. Notwithstanding the dress standards outlined above, MCC reserves the right to refuse entry to any person considered unsuitably attired."

Across the ground in the Compton Stand, almost all of us would have fallen foul of one or more parts of that diktat. We also weren't much good at remaining seated before, during or after the balls that counted. Which of course was all of them. We couldn't have, what with two infectiously enthusiastic presenters and a DJ boinging onto the big screen frequently to tell us to do this or that. It would have been rude not to follow their lead. Not to mention boring.

Besides, many of us arrived enthused. The tide of people coming from the St John's Wood tube station towards Lord's was fuelled by a pleasant frisson of energy. "D'ya remember we went to the first ever one of these," one fella said to his mate as they walked. "We had just got our release from f*****g Covid." Inside the ground, a father took a call from his 24-year-old daughter, who was headed to the scene: "Funny, she never showed any interest in cricket for the first 23 years." Five fans sat in a row cheerfully chatting in burbling Bengali. They broke off the conversation to cheer heartily when Liam Dawson had Sol Budinger caught at long-on with the second ball of Birmingham's innings. But they also yelled and applauded when Matthew Wade hammered Brad Wheal through point for four.

Many spectators were children. During the women's game, one of them, an attentive seven or eight-year-old, had some of the basics of the game explained to him by his father. "How do you know if it's going to be a seam bowler or a spin bowler," the boy asked. Dad thought for a moment, and said: "The seam bowlers come in fast and from a long way away." Just then, Birmingham's Georgia Elwiss steamed in. "Like that, see?" The boy nodded. But he had more questions: "How fast do they bowl?" Again a parental pause, then: "Do you remember in the England-South Africa Tests, the South African fast bowlers were all really quick?" Another nod. "They bowl at about 90mph. Jimmy Anderson is about 83mph .." The kid was having none of that, and interjected with: "Jimmy is the best."

Perhaps because he believed it too, perhaps because he didn't want to complicate already complex matters, perhaps because both could be true, perhaps because he thought he had sown the seed of cricket in his youngster and wanted to nurture it, dad said only: "Yes. Jimmy is the best." It went unsaid that a father was educating his son, with thoughtfulness and love, on cricket that was being played by women. The boy, and many like him, and about as many girls, would not grow up thinking only men played the game.

The father and son were among 13,152 who watched the women's match. The child's ticket, like all those for spectators aged 15 and under, cost 5 Pounds. His father's could have been bought for as little as 10 Pounds. They left before the start of the men's match, which was seen by a crowd of 24,116. All seemed satisfied that they had got their money's worth. Or mom's or dad's money's worth.

That appeared to hold true even in the Pavilion, where a Mexican Wave was duly and eagerly observed. Maybe they have a rule about that, too. Or they had relaxed the rules and let some humanity in - certainly there was little visible evidence of a "formal standard of dress" in the most famously snobbish seats in all of cricket. Even so, you could have fancied the Pavilion itself, looming over a scene that fairly reeked of noisy, colourful, gently unruly youth, as a sullen, stolid parent come to take their offspring home from a teenagers' party.

As a good chunk of the 24,116 of us started the walk back to St John's Wood tube station, it was suddenly and superbly obvious what cricket's future could look like. Even at bastions of the game's pockmarked past and present. We were male and female, young, old and somewhere in between, black, brown and white. We had come to be entertained, to learn, to have fun, to watch fine players play, to be with people we loved or liked or hoped liked us enough to love us some day. We were on our way home, and we were happy. And nobody was going to tell us to sit down.