The Hundred caused quite a stir in domestic British cricket last year, with the new format ripping up the ancient rule book.
The competition’s inaugural season was generally regarded a big success with a new kind of fan drawn to the sport - the final at Lords was packed out with over 25,000 spectators.
Occupying the tournament’s filled seats were not just beery men, but children - taking 20% of tickets, in fact, a huge jump from previous years of the T20 Blast.
The first year’s play saw the Oval Invincibles crowned champions of the women’s tournament and Southern Brave take home the men’s trophy.
Now, on April 5 2022, the main draft for the men’s tournament is due to take place. Here’s what you need to know about how the competition and the draft work.
How is The Hundred different to other forms of cricket?
The Hundred is different in a lot of ways. Most obviously is the number of balls bowled - just 100 per side.
This is fewer than the previous shortest cricket format, T20, which consisted of 120 balls bowled per innings.
Another difference between The Hundred and other forms of domestic British cricket is the way the teams are organised, with the tournament’s structure breaking away from the transitional county-based system that has presided for decades. Instead it's replaced with a franchise model based around cities and regions.
What is still the same as more traditional forms of the game, however, is that whoever scores more runs wins. Lose all 11 batters and your innings will come to an end.
But, while in the past - and this really is just a detail - both teams would try to score the biggest total possible, the new format sees the first team count up and the second team batting to knock those runs down.
The last major differences are in the way the overs are bowled, with five balls being sent down to the batter rather than the traditional six.
And, while before the overs would alternate the end they were bowled from, the new game sees two overs bowled from each end to halve the amount of time spent resetting the field after every over.
How does the Hundred draft work?
The draft is a style of picking teams that takes a leaf out of American sports' book.
This particular draft is done in two stages, with each side allowed to include 15 players in total.
In each of the 15 will be at least one England red ball test-contracted player - there are 20 centrally contracted England players in existence.
In most scenarios, the other 14 players will be drafted in, with each side only permitted to have three overseas players.
Some of the 20 may be allowed to miss the tournament, with four of the players being allowed to be retained as domestic players.
No team is allowed to retain more than two centrally contracted players from the previous season.
In total, the men’s squads are allowed to retain 10 players from their 2021 team and can keep hold of any domestic or international player contracted to them in 2021.
All teams must keep a slot open for the wildcard pick.
Each team will take it in turns to fill any salary bands they have open, picking players from a pool.
The order the teams will get to pick is as follows:
- London Spirit
- Welsh Fire
- Manchester Originals
- Northern Superchargers
- Oval Invincibles
- Trent Rockets
- Birmingham Phoenix
- Southern Brave
Every player in the draft pool will have a reserve price, and they cannot be bought by a team for less than this amount.
If a team wants to spend more than this on a player, they are allowed to.
A wildcard pick will also get to be made at a later date closer to the start of the tournament.
They will also get to pick an overseas wildcard at a later date - both of these spots will be announced in June.
At the time of writing, the Welsh Fire have the most places to fill. Overall, 17 overseas and 25 domestic players will be put into teams.
Who are the biggest stars in The Hundred men’s draft?
Most of the biggest names in cricket are already in teams, having been retained from the previous year. However, the following are available for sides to recruit.
David Warner, Kieron Pollard, Aaron Finch and Andre Russell are all in the running as the top overseas players, while Joe Clarke and Laurie Evans are some of the strongest domestic options available.
In total players from 16 countries are available, with 250 players available for selection from the domestic side of the draft.
What are the main criticisms of the Hundred?
The biggest criticism of the Hundred comes predominantly from the conservative side of the fanbase, who argue that the tournament does away with many crickets traditions.
While some would argue down an ‘ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ line, others have questioned why the ECB has adopted a format not played by any other country, especially when Britain already has a perfectly serviceable T20 tournament in the form of the Blast.
