Mohammad Amir's in and out exposes flaw in Hundred's tribal gathering

There was barely a quarter of an hour between Mohammad Amir's first ball for Oval Invincibles for the season and his last. Amir signed as a short-term replacement last week and bowled 15 of the first 20 balls of his debut fixture. He returned figures of 2 for 7, then walked off into the south London sunset, with Spencer Johnson primed to replace him on Sunday.

The Hundred's curtain-raiser was relatively low-key: tickets were officially sold out, with an attendance of 23,621 for the men's game, but they saw two hugely one-sided games. Only 342 balls - or 57 overs, in old money - were bowled across a day which ended before sunset, at 8.40pm, with the Invincibles early leaders in both men's and women's tables.

The ECB were positively surprised by how quickly fans started to support new teams when the Hundred launched three years ago, with merchandise sales surpassing expectations. But Amir's walk-on role highlighted one of the many problems that the tournament still has: how can supporters form a meaningful connection with a team in a league which permits one-match contracts?

Amir is by no means the only overseas player in the men's Hundred who has arrived on a contract that will barely last a week. Daniel Hughes (Southern Brave), Josh Little (Welsh Fire) and Chris Green (Trent Rockets) have all been announced as short-term, last-minute replacements, with several players missing the start of the Hundred due to a clash with Major League Cricket.

Three years ago, the Hundred's inaugural season clashed only with the Caribbean Premier League. It has avoided that overlap in 2024 but faces competition from MLC and Canada's Global T20, where high salaries will deprive the men's tournament of its biggest names - Rashid Khan, Nicholas Pooran and Haris Rauf - in the first week of the season.

Adam Zampa, who took 3 for 11 to win the match award, is a rare exception in choosing the UK over the US and arriving with time to spare before the season. "It's just the way it happens, unfortunately," he said of Amir's one-game deal. "I've been that guy before as well and it's a bit of a weird feeling. I don't know a way around it - unless people prioritise the Hundred like I have."

In its current guise, the Hundred is a day - or night - out for fans. "It's an awesome competition," Ellyse Perry, the Australian allrounder, said. "The atmosphere at the matches is brilliant, the quality of cricket is outstanding, and it's such a nice landmark tournament in the middle of the English summer… it's an all-round package, including the entertainment in between."

But in the long term, the ECB want the nature of support in the Hundred to look more like those that exist in English football. "We can't rest on our laurels," Vikram Banerjee, the ECB's head of business operations, said on Monday when discussing the imminent sale of stakes in the eight Hundred teams to private investors. "We need to move it more into tribalism.

"I'm an Aston Villa fan, for my sins, and I travel up to Middlesbrough and down to Bournemouth and wherever else to watch my team. That's where we want to get the Hundred to: fans of London Spirit travelling around the country, rather than it being a day out. That's what we're looking to do."

It is a bold ambition and one that is unashamedly forward-facing. The ECB's pitch to prospective investors is not built around the next couple seasons of the Hundred, but a long-term play in which a tournament that Banerjee describes as "in its infancy" becomes the second-biggest cricket league in the world, behind only the IPL.

The Oval was dotted with fluorescent orange on Tuesday evening - but that of the stewarding team, rather than Birmingham Phoenix's colours. If there were any travelling fans in the crowd, they were unlikely to make themselves known in any case: between the men's and women's teams, the Phoenix managed 194 for 20 in 173 balls.

London does not provide an accurate barometer for the Hundred's success: tickets for just about any format of cricket at an affordable price will sell out in this city in July or August. There was evidence of a family audience from the 10,249 fans who came for the women's game; by the end of the men's, the usual boozy crowd had rolled in from work for an evening out.

The ECB are using the Hundred as a 'shop window' this summer and there were moments through this day that were unlikely to bring anyone to the till. After 11 balls of the women's game, the match was delayed by 10 minutes while a wet patch at mid-on was covered by groundstaff - hardly the way to sell the sport to any NFL owners learning the rules from a hospitality suite.

The opening day was a reminder that the Hundred has a strong base, with past, present and future internationals littered across the two teams, as well as an engaged crowd. But Amir's blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo brought with it a reminder that there is a long, long way to go.