The England Cricket Board (ECB) wasn’t satisfied with the progression of the Hundred among the top-class overseas players. That has led to the franchises making direct offers of multi-contract deals to the players worth £300,000 per season if the overhaul draft system, which was considered by the ECB, gets approved.
Currently, each of the teams can have three overseas players for each game, while from the next season, they are trying to increase the number and find an opportunity to field four players outside England. They have already started the process of selling the stakes last month and hold the prospective of the total increment, which could lead to up to 80% next year.
If the early-stage plans are approved and sale could move quickly, the top salaries can climb to £125000 to £300,000 in the men’s Hundred ahead of the next season, while in the case of the Women’s 100-ball league, the price will get up to £100,000 from the current rate of £50000.
The Hundred to Compete IPL with New Salary Planning
Those changes will put the Hundred’s total salary second to the Indian Premier League among the men’s T20 league, while for female cricket, it will rise second to the Women’s Premier League (WPL).
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The league has attracted top-notch players from the women’s game but has failed to do the same for the men’s game. The left-arm pacer of the Pakistan side, Shaheen Shah Afridi, pulled out of his deal with the Welsh Fire in 2024 because of his contract in Canada’s Global T20 due to a pay that felt more healthy to him.
The Australian World Cup-winning captain, Pat Cummins, revealed that he hadn’t thought of participating in the Hundred because of a fine deal in the Major League Cricket (MLC).
As a result, the ECB could be considering allowing the franchises to make up six direct overseas signings, three each for men’s and women’s, on multi-year contracts, to overtake several other tournaments like the BBL, ILT20, and SA20. The head of the ECB, who is running the sale process, Vikram Banerjee, mentioned that their league is falling behind because of the short-form leagues attracting more top players.
“We are the sixth highest-payer in the men’s game. We’re about to go seventh if we stay still at the moment – which we won’t. The 15th selection in a 15-man squad, with all due respect, you don’t need to pay huge sums for.” Vikram Banerjee said during the podcast. “They might be an up-and-coming player. It’s that top three or four players [per team] that you do need to pay to get their time and their effort to be there, and we have fallen behind.”
At the moment, the IPL also follows the rule of going with four overseas players in the playing XI, and by putting this same scheme, the Hundred will bring itself in the same global standards set by the IPL, PSL, WPL, and SA20.
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Recently, Lalit Modi, the founder and architect of the IPL, who is serving a life ban from the BCCI, slammed their plans to grow the league and also advised the IPL teams not to invest in the 100-ball competition.
“I don’t recognize his particular comments.” The ECB chief executive, Richard Gould, told the BBC in response to the criticism. “It wasn’t so long ago that he had an article in the Telegraph saying he wanted to buy the competition for £1 billion.”
The 2025 season of the Hundred will begin in early August, just after the end of the Test series at home against India.