Manchester‘s social cricket entertainment venue is kicking off the launch of the 2022 The Hundred tournament with an exciting new competition.
And you and your mates could bag a share of a £10,000 prize if you come out on top.
To celebrate the start of the tournament, Sixes – the world’s first immersive cricketing experience, where budding batters can show off their skills in the nets – has decided to set up an inclusive sporting competition that will see teams from all across the UK face-off against each other to see who can rack up the most runs nationwide.
Cricket fans who reckon they’ve got what it takes to clinch the win can head on down to Sixes Manchester in the Corn Exchange to take part in the competition before The Hundred returns once again.
Unfamiliar with The Hundred? Already proving to be big hit with families and young people during its first year in 2021, The Hundred is cricket’s newest one-day tournament that gives fans the chance to watch a mix of fast-paced world-class cricket, along with a wide range music and entertainment off the pitch – and it’s back for another season from next month.
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The action-packed tournament features world-class men’s and women’s players from around the globe, and has helped reintroduce cricket and showcase its biggest stars to a new audience.
Sixes has set up the new competition so teams across the UK can face-off and see who racks up the most runs / Credit: Sixes
The new competition will be running in Manchester and at all of Sixes’ other four venues in Fitzrovia, Fulham, White City, and Birmingham from Monday 25 July – Saturday 3 September.
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But what exactly do you need to do to be in with a chance of win a cut of £10,000?
Well, the competition challenges teams of between four and nine to face 100 balls and score as many runs as possible, just like in the The Hundred, and this means that competitors will not only get to take on a task, but also get the chance to experience the thrill of facing a professional cricketer by standing at the opposite end of the crease to simulated versions of The Hundred’s most iconic bowlers, including Mady Villiers, Lauren Bell, Sophie Ecclestone, Adil Rashid, Moeen Ali, and Saqib Mahmood.
Sixes Manchester is one of five social cricket venues across the UK / Credit: Sixes Manchester
The eight top-scoring teams across the country will win a cool £500, a Sixes Burger Bat, and be invited to a grand final on Sunday 11 September at Sixes’ newest London venue, White City, where they will battle out in a knockout format.
One team will walk away with a whopping £5,000, and of course, a trophy to recognise and show-off their impressive win.
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Benson Boone has announced a headline gig in Manchester – and it’s a big one
Danny Jones
American pop sensation and unrivalled king of unnecessary front flips, Benson Boone, has just announced his first-ever headline Manchester arena gig as part of a new arena tour.
The solo artist and acrobatic chart-topper has seen a meteoric rise in the US and, as is usually the case across the Atlantic, he’s become increasingly popular over here too.
Benson may have performed here in Manchester before as part of the 2024 MTV EMAs and for a small show at The Deaf Institute, but now big fans have the added Boone of getting to watch a standalone show at one of Europe’s leading indoor entertainment venues.
Announced on Friday, 30 May, the 22-year-old will be making his way across the pond from Washington for a limited run of UK concerts, with a date at Co-op Live arena being one of just five dates.
Extending his ‘American Heart Tour’ ahead of the release of his eponymous sophomore record, with this autumn leg, Co-op Live will mark his individual visit to 0161.
The Grammy-nominated artist has earned several nods of recognition already for his first album, Fireworks & Rollerblades, which was released just last spring.
He has been described as among the current trend of male singers who fit into the American Idol and ‘Voice audition pop’ genre (a term recently coined online), along with the likes of Teddy Swims, Shawn Mendes, Alex Warren and others.
Regardless of the slightly tongue-in-cheek term, he’s become a huge hit around the world and landing him is still a big coup for the venue that has already welcomed similarly massive pop contemporaries like Swims, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and more.
In case you’re wondering just how big a deal he is over in the States, even this early in his career, his domestic headline dates sold out in seconds, quite literally…
The last time he visited Co-op Live was to perform at the most recent MTV EMAs
Benson Boone is coming to Manchester on Monday, 27 October and will be playing just two other British venues: The O2 in London (two nights) and the Utilita Arena in Birmingham.
Safe to say you don’t want to miss this one if you like soaring vocals and lots of flipping.
General admission tickets go live at 10am on Thursday, 5 June, but Co-op Members can gain access via the arena’s official pre-sale window from the same time on Tuesday (3 Jun).
Emily Sergeant -
19th July 2022 
