It is hard not to admire Ben Stokes' comic timing. As the Hundred launches a new season on Tuesday and tests English cricket's appetite for renamed teams, revamped squads and owners watching on from hospitality suites, Stokes will turn out for Durham in the opening fixture of their Metro Bank One-Day Cup campaign, away at Derbyshire.
His return, three weeks on from his abrupt, mid-Test international retirement, marks the start of the final stanza of Stokes' extraordinary career. He may now be a "has-been", as Ian Botham pointedly described him, yet the prospect of his comeback overshadowing the Hundred's opening night feels like one final swipe at the "suits" against whom he has spent a career railing.
It is a decade since the ECB secured approval from the counties to go ahead with a city-based short-form competition, and it has been desperate to make it work ever since. But this year, it will play out centre-stage while England's biggest star is touring the shires: Stokes is due to play at Gosforth and Darlington in the unloved 50-over competition, and will relish the chance to draw attention away from the Hundred.
Stokes did not register for the inaugural auction earlier this year, and has had a curious, turbulent relationship with the tournament since its inception. He scored 14 runs and took three wickets across his only five appearances for the now-defunct Northern Superchargers, but much more pertinently, his two seasons involved as a player both ended badly.
He played two games in 2021, and suffered a panic attack in a Nottingham hotel room the night after the second, as depicted vividly in his Phoenix from the Ashes documentary. Three years later, convinced by Andrew Flintoff to make himself available for a short stint, he tore his left hamstring during his third game, prompting him to miss four Tests even before a recurrence later that year.
Stokes is England's single most recognisable cricketer, the one player with genuine cut-through, even to the type of cricket-agnostic fans that the Hundred is designed to attract. Yet after five years, he has barely featured in the tournament that needs him most, let alone created the type of viral moment that the ECB craves. He may change his mind on it next summer, but do not bank on it.
In light of Brendon McCullum's removal as Test coach, the ECB's failure to act decisively after the Ashes looks increasingly foolish. Stokes's international retirement was ultimately prompted by his inability to get over England's defeat: could a fresh coach for the New Zealand series, full of energy and new ideas, have helped him move past it? He must feel, deep down, that the "suits" got it wrong yet again.
Stokes' absence may not matter to the Hundred this summer. He is not the player he once was and, if the women's competition has long been world-class - 21 of the 22 players in this month's T20 World Cup final will feature this season - then the men's has finally caught up. Higher wages and an extra overseas player per team mean that Australia, South Africa and New Zealand's T20 captains are all involved, plus the cream of the franchise circuit.
Just as importantly, England's players are fully available, as they will be in all future seasons. The Hundred clashed with England Test matches in its first two years, a model that has worked successfully in Australia with the BBL but fell flat here: without the biggest names involved, a new tournament never stood much chance of convincing the wider sporting public of its merits.
But now, those names have been guaranteed to the teams' new owners under their participation agreement with the ECB. As a result, Harry Brook will play for Sunrisers Leeds at The Oval on Tuesday night and come up against MI London's Will Jacks and Sam Curran, less than 48 hours after he captained them both in England's win over India in Sunday's ODI series decider at Lord's.
He may well be the busiest man in English cricket, but Brook will want to play: his contract with Sunrisers is the biggest in the history of English domestic cricket, and will earn him a cool £465,000 for playing between eight and ten matches in the Hundred this year. Combined with his central contract, it is more than enough to convince him that 10 weeks at the IPL is not worth his time.
That is among the unintended benefits of private investment for the ECB, but this is no free lunch. New owners and co-owners are not philanthropists: in the long run, they will want to see some return on their investment; more immediately, they all want to win. If England wish to rest a fast bowler before a Test series, or send them to Loughborough for a training camp? Tough.
ECB officials say that this season is both year six and year one of the Hundred. Vikram Banerjee, the tournament's managing director, believes that the level of operational change in the past 18 months - from eight identikit teams to eight privately-run franchises - is unprecedented in an English sports league, and the scale of change will be evident.
Ticket sales have recovered from a slow start, and two teams - Manchester Super Giants and Sunrisers Leeds - will give away tens of thousands of replica shirts. New investors are pouring money into event presentation, with headline music acts booked for the two London venues this week, and the quality of the cricket should be higher than ever before.
Yet as the Hundred enters its sixth season, the persistent sense of uncertainty that has hung over it throughout its existence remains. Will the English cricketing public buy into the teams' new identities? Will players who have changed teams yet again care about who wins, beyond their own professional instincts? And will investors get itchy feet if the numbers don't add up?
The answers to some of those questions may become clearer over the next four weeks, but one thing is for certain: if Stokes has a quiet month with bat and ball, the ECB will not mind one bit.