You’re out! Teams in The Hundred can release players in revamp

Teams in the men’s The Hundred will be able to retain or release as many players as they wish from their original list, ahead of a new draft in February for the tournament’s delayed launch next July.

The eight teams were drafted last October, but there will be significant changes in the coming months after the launch of the new competition was delayed 12 months by the coronavirus pandemic.

Had the Hundred been played in 2020, the ECB planned to allow teams to retain up to 10 of their 15 players for the 2021 season. As the competition was not possible, they have changed their plan, which Standard Sport can reveal:

The window

Next month, the ECB will open a retention window, which will run until mid-January. During that period, teams will decide which players they would like to keep on the deals arranged at last year’s draft.

But either the team or player can opt to pull out of that deal, meaning that rosters could change heavily.

Teams might decide they no longer want a player. Equally, if a player feels he is worth more than the deal he received last year — take the ICC’s top-ranked T20 batsman Dawid Malan, who was picked up by Trent Rockets for just £40,000 — he might wish to re-enter the draft.

Overseas and Kolpak players The main changes to squads are likely to centre on non-England-qualified players. Teams will still be allowed to sign only three overseas players.

With Covid confusing the international calendar, it is unclear which nations’ players will be available next summer.

More pressing is the fact that more than 10 Kolpak players, mainly South Africans, were drafted last year (such as Dane Vilas, left, who was picked in the top bracket of £125,000 by Manchester Originals).

Due to Brexit, it is expected that they will no longer be able to play as locals, as they would have done this year. So counties must either release them or absorb them into their overseas quota. This is good news for young English talent.

Draft

With the retention window closed, a draft will be held in February for teams to fill the remaining slots in their roster. It is likely the number of places required will vary between teams.

The ECB are working with broadcasters on how the draft will work, but it will not be like last year’s, where coaches flew in from around the globe for a glitzy event at Sky’s studios in Isleworth.

Test players

A detail that must be ironed out before the retention window opens is the allocation of England’s centrally-contracted Test players, whose availability is limited by international commitments.

Last year, the eight teams were allocated one of England’s contracted Test players (James Anderson and Stuart Broad were omitted). England’s contract list is set to be announced next week and will be different to last year’s.

If a player (as Jonny Bairstow is expected to) loses his Test contract, his team (in this instance Welsh Fire) will have the opportunity to agree a deal with him in any price bracket and replace him with another Test-contracted player.

It is possible there will be more than 10 centrally-contracted players this year, in which case some Hundred teams could have more than one on their roster.

Salaries

Salaries across the men’s competition are reducing by 20 per cent, meaning the six bands are: £100,000, £80,000, £60,000, £40,000, £32,000 and £24,000.

Wildcards

It was always planned that each team would fill one final spot on their roster in the weeks immediately before the tournament, allowing for new talent to emerge. That remains the plan.