England’s new 100-ball tournament could feature local marquee players to ensure the eight teams do not go without high-profile cricketers from their respective regions.
The Hundred, which begins in 2020, will feature squads of 15 selected predominantly via a draft system, with budgets estimated to be in the region of the £900,000 salary cap in place for franchises in Australia’s Big Bash League. The thinking is to have up to four slots for overseas players – three in the playing XI – and the 15th squad member as a wildcard pick from the Twenty20 Blast that precedes it, allowing in-form but undrafted county players a late route in. Each team will have a designated general manager who will oversee their squad lists.
Though the eight teams are expected to have names that do not reflect existing county or city identities, there is a growing belief among the boards that will run them, and those working on The Hundred’s regulations, that some local flavour is needed in the squads. To that end, plans are being considered that would allow teams to reserve one or possibly two local marquee players before the first round of the draft so that, say, the Edgbaston team could guarantee a Birmingham-born cricketer such as Chris Woakes or Moeen Ali in its ranks, or the Headingley side contains some Yorkshiremen.
Teams who opted not to do this – the Cardiff side, for example, may not consider a Glamorgan player suitable for a top berth – would likely then get priority come the first round of the main draft, in which the general managers will take it in turns to select players using preset salary bands.
With Test cricket set to be played at the same time, it remains to be seen whether England’s red-ball players are also allocated to their existing “home” teams or to another if their county’s is not one of the eight host grounds. Given their availability is expected to be greatly reduced, they may well sit outside the 15-man squads.
As well as drawing on up to 96 of the 420 professional cricketers in the County Championship, depending on how many overseas players are drafted, The Hundred will also involve a number of county coaches and support staff seconded for the duration of the tournament even though their main employers will still be playing domestic cricket.
International coaches who travel the global domestic Twenty20 circuit, such as Gary Kirsten or Tom Moody, will doubtless be sought out by some teams but the organisers hope the best of British talent gets a chance, too, by arranging their release. David Ripley of Northamptonshire, who has had success in Twenty20, is one example.
Needless to say, while the competition does not start for another two years, the counties are keen to know as early as possible which players and support staff will be lost to it. They are pushing for an early draft, while the debate continues as to whether 50-over or championship cricket should be played during this time.
The team behind The Hundred at the England and Wales Cricket Board, led by Sanjay Patel, will meet representatives of the Professional Cricketers’ Association at Edgbaston on Tuesday to explain the rationale behind the format. The latter will seek an explanation as to why this is occurring after the decision has been made.
The PCA will have players from each of the 18 first-class counties, plus representatives of the England men’s and women’s teams, and intend to hold an in-house meeting in advance to ensure their primary concerns – such as the move away from T20 to a format that is not played at international level – are coordinated.
The players’ union is under pressure from its members to provide strong leadership as the cricketing landscape shifts, not just in regards to The Hundred but during the continuing negotiations over the new county partnership that will kick in when the ECB’s £1.1bn five-year broadcast deal – which is worth more than double the one it replaces – begins in 2020.
As with the Australian pay dispute last year, there will be strong emphasis on remunerating emerging players during talks over a new salary cap. During the week the PCA highlighted nine cricketers whose county terms have been under the national minimum wage in the past 12 months in what it called “widespread employment contract abuses”.
English cricket has been advised to adopt a collective bargaining model by players’ union chief, Tony Irish. The executive chairman of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA) is counselling a radical change in approach. “A number of countries have collective agreements between the board, the players’ association and the states or franchises operating in domestic cricket. These agreements regulate player contract issues such as player numbers, standard contracts, minimum and maximum contract amounts and so on. An agreement such as this involving the counties could be put in place.”
