sport news PAUL NEWMAN: Andrew Strauss faces a colossal task attracting budding cricketers ... trends now
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Will Smeed is one of the best and most exciting prospects in English cricket, as he demonstrated by scoring the first ever century in the Hundred.
A huge future in the game looks assured for the 20-year-old, starting perhaps with him gatecrashing the England squad for the Twenty20 World Cup in October.
But Smeed has never played in a first-class match and could conceivably go throughout his whole career without facing a red ball or wearing white clothes. In truth, why would he want to, even though he insisted to Sportsmail after that century for Birmingham Phoenix that he was still keen to play all formats.
Birmingham Phoenix's Will Smeed hit the first ever century in the Hundred scoring 101 runs
Why would Smeed really want to play in the County Championship for Somerset and, by extension, Test cricket for England when he could spend what is becoming the whole year in the ever expanding, lucrative world of franchise cricket?
Why would any of the next generation put in the hard red-ball yards and deny themselves serious white-ball earning potential?
That is the challenge facing Sir Andrew Strauss, for one,
