“We want to make the game as simple as possible to understand,” said Andrew Strauss as part of the ECB’s justification for the new 100-ball format that kicks off in 2020. “We are trying to appeal to a new audience,” he added.

Two perfectly legitimate explanations for this radical proposal. “In particular, we are looking at mums and kids in the summer holidays,” the husband and father of two children said.

Mums? Why mums? Mums specifically?

There are two problems with this clumsy sentence. The first is the implication that it is only mums who have responsibility for occupying their children during the school holidays. Presumably while dad is off doing something far more important.

The second is that if you are going to try