Either it kills the sport or it saves it. Many people believe that to love cricket is to oppose The Hundred and will never watch a single ball. Others pedal hyperbole in the hope of creating the illusion that this is the best thing to happen to the great game since WG Grace stopped shaving.

There is no doubt that reality lies somewhere in the middle. Although moderate fans recognize the benefits, they are also aware of the drawbacks. In the absence of a better alternative, the question is whether the value outweighs the losses. Before The Hundred even began, the England and Wales Cricket Board put the event on the back foot.

Fans were alienated, the team names sounded like they were taken from W1A (what is a supercharger?) and the kits resembled whatever brand of crisps sponsored the team. According to Worcestershire chairman Fanos Hira, the tournament lost £9m in its first two years.

The Hundred seems to be finding its footing, at least on the field – the men’s competition. Since 2021, the women’s tournament has been sprinting.

It was always going to be a big year, the first since former Hundred skeptics, Richard Thompson and Richard Gould, became the ECB’s chairman and chief executive.

Despite murmurs about the future of the competition, this season has been enjoyable and engaging. There have been more close finishes in the men’s games. Despite the lack of international superstars, England’s men are world champions in both white-ball formats, and this country has enough depth to put on a decent franchise tournament.

Ticket sales, TV audiences, radio listeners, and online views of video clips are all up. There has been strong public support for the tournament from England players like Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Kate Cross and Sam Billings.

Nevertheless, there is still a debate over what the future may hold. According to Thompson, The Hundred will continue until the current Sky TV contract expires in 2028.

Despite the fact that a clear window for the biggest names to participate in The Hundred has been beneficial to the competition, he acknowledged that not having Test cricket in August is far from ideal, and both Ashes series thrived when they didn’t have to compete with Premier League football.

Additionally, it is extremely difficult to maintain a consistent schedule year after year. There will be a men’s T20 World Cup in the Caribbean in June 2024, so England’s home Tests will be moved. There will be five Tests against India during the following summer, after the IPL concludes in May.

Men’s domestic calendars are higgledy-piggledy, and The Hundred suffers as a result.

Most can agree that four competitions is too many, but beyond that a consensus on a way forward seems hard to reach. Pushing the County Championship to the beginning and end of the summer is often cited as a problem, yet the standard of the top division is high and, as this summer has shown, predicting when the best weather will be is a fool’s errand.

One major gripe from the county diehards is how little their teams play at home during August – sometimes as few as four games in the One-Day Cup – with another argument being everything the ECB wanted to achieve with The Hundred could have been done by giving some love and investment to the T20 Blast.

But, realistically, that would mean giving August over to the Blast and, very probably, cutting from the current 14 group games to ensure every match can be televised, just as they are in every other major short-form competition across the world. Neither fans nor accountants would be pleased with a reduction in county home games.

More importantly, making the premier men’s short-form competition focused on the counties would leave the women in limbo. Almost all discussion on the pros, cons and future of The Hundred – including this article – focusses primarily on the men, when there is an argument to suggest the women’s competition is the best in the world, even after the advent of the Women’s Premier League in India.