Cricket: has the Hundred finally come of age?

Five years after its launch, the Hundred still "gets up people's noses", said Lawrence Booth in the Daily Mail. Traditionalists haven't reconciled themselves to its scoring format, nor to the way it condemns county cricket to virtual irrelevance during August. When the competition follows a particularly "epic" Test series – like this summer's contest between England and India – the purists' distaste merely grows.

Yet, even its critics were given pause for thought in June, when the sale of the eight Hundred franchises "raised £520 million for English cricket". Given how cash-strapped the domestic game has become (two years ago, the collective debt of county cricket reportedly stood at £333.6 million), that's a hugely valuable sum. The Hundred was established, in part, to provide a financial lifeline to county cricket – and it appears to be fulfilling that role.

This year's Hundred, which concluded on Sunday with a third straight victory for Oval Invincibles in the men's final, and a first win for Northern Superchargers in the women's, was marked by a sense of "real progress", said Will Macpherson in The Telegraph. TV viewing figures "bounced back after a drop last year"; there was a notable lift in standards, with the competition attracting stronger players than ever – the young English talent Davina Perrin, for instance, who scored a "breakthrough century" in the women's eliminator. And the crowd for the women's final – 22,542 – was the "highest ever".

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All this bodes well for next year, when the competition, under its new owners, is expected to be significantly revamped: there will be "new team names, a player auction with bigger salaries, new kits, possibly a tweaked format". The new owners talk, loftily, of turning the Hundred into a rival for Wimbledon. Such a goal may not be feasible – but what's clear is that the Hundred has been more successful than many predicted, and is here to stay.