The Hundred – All You Need To Know About This New Format Of Cricket

After introducing the T20s to the cricket world, England has now invented another format of the game – The Hundred. The England Cricket Board (ECB) has tinkered with the rules and regulations of the conventional game to generate this brand new product. The fans are curious to know about The Hundred because it’s totally different from the other formats of cricket. Here’s all that you need to know about The Hundred –

Where did the idea come from?

A survey conducted by the ECB, which involved hundreds of thousands of people, threw alarming results. Out of all the people who showed interest in cricket, only 10% were willing to attend the matches. 95% of the kids, who were a part of the survey, didn’t mention cricket as one of the top two sports they would like to play.

From the results of the survey, the ECB concluded that cricket, as a sport, needs to increase its speed in order to attract more fans. The T20s were launched with the same motive, but the T20s still take about double the amount of time that a Football match takes.

The reason why Football is the most popular game across the globe is that it provides high-speed entertainment in a short span of time. A Football match takes 105 minutes to complete including the mid-time break.

The challenge for the ECB was to come up with a format whose completion time is close to the completion time of a Football match and they came up with “The Hundred”. The games of The Hundred are supposed to be over in less than 2.5 hours.

Rules of “The Hundred”

The new rules that have been introduced in The Hundred are as follows –

• There won’t be a 6-ball over. A bowler will be allowed to bowl a maximum of 20 balls in a match, which he can bowl in the blocks of 10 balls or 5 balls. If he wants, he can bowl 4 blocks of 5 balls, 2 blocks of 10 balls or 1 block of 10 and 2 blocks of 5, whichever way it suits him.
• The striking end of the batsman, which generally changes after every over in the other formats of the game, will change after 10 balls in The Hundred. For example – if a bowler bowls a block of 5 balls, the striking end of the batsman won’t change. It will change only after the next 5 balls.
• The batting power-play, which happens to be a 6-over affair in T20 cricket, will be a 25-ball affair in The Hundred.
• There will be only one strategic timeout of 2.5 minutes. The fielding captain, in consultation with his coaching staff, can ask for the strategic timeout at any stage between the 25^th and the 75^th ball of the innings.

Tournament Structure

There are a total of 8 teams in the tournament – Manchester Originals, London Spirit, Birmingham Phoenix, Oval Invincibles, Trent Rockets, Welsh Fire, Northern Superchargers and Southern Brave.

All the 8 teams will play one match against each other and two matches against their “paired rivals”. The paired rivals of each team are –

• Manchester Originals – Northern Superchargers
• London Spirit – Oval Invincibles
• Birmingham Phoenix – Trent Rockets
• Welsh Fire – Southern Brave

After all the teams have played all their matches, the top 3 teams in the points table will enter the finals day. The first ranked team will automatically qualify for the final match, while the second and the third-ranked teams will lock horns. The winner of that match will face the first ranked team in the final.

Franchise Ownership

There are 18 counties in the English domestic circuit. These 18 counties will be represented by 8 franchises in The Hundred. Here are the counties which the franchises will be representing –

• Manchester Originals – Lancashire
• London Spirit – Middlesex, Essex, Northamptonshire
• Birmingham Phoenix – Warwickshire, Worcestershire
• Oval Invincibles – Surrey, Kent
• Trent Rockets – Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire
• Welsh Fire – Glamorgan, Somerset, Gloucestershire
• Northern Superchargers – Yorkshire, Durham
• Southern Brave – Hampshire, Sussex

These franchises have not been sold to the private entities by the ECB. The board itself owns the franchises and will be funding all their expenses.

Composition of the teams

It’s mandatory for all the franchises to pick a centrally contracted England “test” player and two local icons. The centrally contracted test players and the local icons picked by the 8 franchises are –

Teams	Centrally Contracted Test Player	Local Icons
Manchester Originals	Jos Buttler	Saqib Mahmood, Matt Parkinson
London Spirit	Rory Burns	Eoin Morgan, Dan Lawrence
Birmingham Phoenix	Chris Woakes	Moeen Ali, Pat Brown
Oval Invincibles	Sam Curran	Jason Roy, Tom Curran
Trent Rockets	Joe Root	Alex Hales, Harry Gurney
Welsh Fire	Jonny Bairstow	Tom Banton, Colin Ingram
Northern Superchargers	Ben Stokes	Adil Rashid, David Willey
Southern Brave	Jofra Archer	James Vince, Chris Jordan

 

The rest of the squad of each franchise will be composed through a players’ draft which will take place on the 20^th of October.

Each team is allowed to pick 15 players in its squad. The centrally contracted test players won’t be considered a part of that 15 and they won’t be a part of the players’ draft either. Their salary will be paid separately by the ECB.

Players’ Draft

There are 7 salary bands in the players’ draft – £125,000, £100,000, £75,000, £60,000, £50,000, £40,000, £30,000. The draft will have 14 rounds, 2 rounds of each salary band, starting with the highest salary band which is £125,000.

The teams will pick 12 players in the draft out of which 3 can be overseas players. Every team will have to skip two rounds of the draft because their two local icon players would have occupied those rounds already.

For example – Eoin Morgan has been picked as a local icon player by the London Spirit and his salary band is £125,000. So, the London Spirit will have to skip one of the two rounds of £125,000 salary band.

In the first round of the draft, the Trent Rockets will go first followed by Southern Brave, Northern Superchargers, Welsh Fire, Oval Invincibles, Manchester Originals, London Spirit and Birmingham Phoenix respectively.

In the second round, the order will reverse. Birmingham phoenix will go first followed by London Spirit, Manchester Originals, Oval Invincibles, Welsh Fire, Northern Superchargers, Southern Brave and Trent Rockets respectively.

In the third round, the order will reverse again and the process will go on like that with the order reversing in every round.

Wildcard Entry

With 2 local icon players and 12 picked from the draft, all the teams will have 14 players in their squad as the draft finishes. The 15^th member of the squad will be a wildcard entry. The teams will pick that 15^th player from the top performers of the Vitality T20 blast which will be organized just before The Hundred.

Duration of the tournament

The Hundred has been scheduled during the summer holidays in England so that the kids can attend most of the matches. It will begin on the 17^th of July next year and the finals day will be on the 16^th of August.