Women’s Hundred will have a player draft before of a new season. The men’s competition’s draft procedure will now also be use in the women’s tournament.
The Women’s Hundred will use a player draft method in the coming season, similar to the men’s competition. The Hundred announced on Friday, November 18 that under the revised approach, up to 32 players will be recruited ahead of next summer’s competition.
Welsh Fire, the team that finished worst in the standings in the 2022 season, will be granted the first pick. While two-time defending champions Oval Invincibles will be given the last pick. The draft for 2023 is divide into three sections, with the first beginning in December and the last in June of the following year.
Heather Knight, captain of the English women’s team and member of the London Spirit, was ecstatic about the new system that will be implemented for the upcoming season.
“It is brilliant news that the Hundred will be holding the first-ever draft in the women’s game, and it’ll be fascinating to see who is first pick!”
Heather said.
“We’ve already talked about it as a playing group – it’s really exciting and I think we’ve seen in the men’s game that drafts really get people discussing and debating selection, so it’s great that the women’s competition will be part of that conversation,”
she added.
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The draft’s three stages
The first stage of the system will be retentions, with each side able to keep up to four members from their current rosters. Stage two permits teams to utilize one “right to match card (RTM)” if they want to keep a player from the 2022 squad. Furthermore, if they have a space available in their squad at the same pay band, they can activate the RTM card.
The new system’s last stage allows teams to sign the remaining seven players in each squad from the free market. Throughout the process leading up to the new season, a limit of three centrally contracted England players and three overseas players will apply.
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