The eight franchises set to be involved in the third edition of the Hundred will move a step closer to finalising their squads when this year’s Draft takes place on Thursday.
The fixtures for the tournament were announced back in January, with the competition set to begin at Trent Bridge on August 1 and the final due to take place at Lord’s on August 27.
For the first time since the Hundred was launched in 2021, a women’s Draft will take place alongside the men’s.
The eight teams have already had the chance to retain players from last year’s squads (up to four players for the women’s sides and 10, plus one England centrally-contracted player, for the men’s) but will be looking to fine-tune their rosters, with some stellar talent available on both domestic and international fronts.
Here’s everything you need to know...
When is the Draft?
The Hundred Draft is scheduled to take place on Thursday, March 23, 2023, starting at 4pm GMT and lasting around two hours.
How can I watch the Draft?
The Draft is being broadcast live on Sky Sports Main Event and Cricket channels. This will be the first televised Draft since the original version in 2019, which took place ahead of the tournament’s planned launch in 2020 before it was pushed back by the pandemic.
How many picks does each team get?
That depends on how many players they chose to retain. In the men’s competition, each team has 13 contracts up for grabs at this stage and as such could, theoretically, have as many as 13 draft picks.
In reality, though, most teams have already used the majority of those contracts to retain talent from last season. Welsh Fire, who finished bottom, have only retained five players (plus their centrally-contracted England player, Jonny Bairstow) and so have the most picks with eight, but six of the other seven franchises retained the maximum ten players and so have just three picks.
The women’s franchises have only eight contracts to dish out at this stage but with a maximum of four retained players, each have at least four draft picks available on Thursday. In total, there are 134 places available across the two drafts.
What is the Draft order?
As in American sports, the Draft order is based on last season’s finishing position, with the worst performing team going first.
Men’s order:Welsh Fire, Southern Brave, Northern Superchargers, Oval Invincibles, Birmingham Phoenix, London Spirt, Manchester Originals, Trent Rockets.
Women’s order:Fire, Spirit, Originals, Superchargers, Phoenix, Rockets, Brave, Invincibles.
This, however, is where things get complicated. Players’ salaries are dictated by which round they are picked in - for instance, players selected in the first round of the men’s Draft earn £125,000 contracts. However, teams only have a limited number of slots available in each salary band and so pass up their pick(s) in the corresponding round if they have already filled them.
Oval Invincibles, for example, are fourth in the men’s Draft order but have already filled all six of their slots in the top three salary bands, so will not pick until the fourth round.
Men’s Draft order and retained players
Women’s Draft order and retained players
Which overseas players are up for grabs?
Teams are restricted to a maximum of three overseas players, many of whom have already been retained from last year, so spots are at a premium. In the women’s tournament alone, 148 overseas players have entered the draft but just 15 can be selected.
Leading names in the men’s Draft include Australia’s Adam Zamp and Marcus Stoinis, Pakistan’s Babar Aram and Shaheen Afridi, as well as Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al-Hasan and New Zealand pair Kane Williamson and Trent Boult.
Aussie seamer Mitchell Starc and Proteas quick Anrich Nortje were among those originally registered for the Draft who have since pulled out, the latter to play in America’s new Major League Cricket, which launches in July.
The women’s Draft includes India stars Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur, as well as South Africans Laura Wolvaardt and Shabnim Ismail, though a number of Australia’s leading players have opted out after featuring last year, mainly to rest off the back of the Ashes.
Availability is likely to be a key factor in teams’ Draft planning, with a number of international series potentially overlapping with the Hundred.
Which England players are up for grabs?
The restraints on overseas players means the best English players not already registered with teams are expected to be in hot demand.
They include Test opener Ben Duckett, fast bowler Olly Stone, left-arm seamers David Willey and Reece Topley and batter Tom Banton.
What else do I need to know?
Some players in both drafts, including many of the top overseas players, have set reserve prices, meaning they must either be selected at or above their desired salary, or not at all.
Each team in each Draft has one ‘Right To Match’ card. Teams can play this card when one of their former players from last year is selected by a rival. Provided they have space in the same salary bracket, the Right To Match team can intervene to re-sign the player instead. This is likely to prove a popular weapon in the women’s Draft, where teams could only retain three marquee players (either England contracted or overseas).
Following the Draft, the men’s squads will each be filled out by two wildcard signings based on the first stage of the Vitality Blast. The remainder of the women’s squad will be filled after negotiations in an open market.
