The Hundred: All you need to know about 100-ball Format
The England Cricket Board (ECB) intends to revolutionize Cricket with a new tournament, ‘The Hundred’, which sees a completely new format.
The Inception of T20 Cricket has seen countries investing in the shortest format of the game by coming up with their own Domestic T20 Tournament.
India has the Indian Premier League, Australia has Big Bash League, West Indies has Caribbean Premier League, and so on. Not only have these tournaments invoked excitement among the players, they have also given a tremendous rise to viewership; both online and offline.
However, England Cricket Board (ECB) have fallen behind in the race to host a quality domestic T20 competition within the country. The existing T20 Vitality Blast has failed to attract major sponsors and foreign stars as compared to the popularity of IPL or Big Bash.
To tackle this, the Home of Cricket, England is geared up with a new tournament with a completely now format. Titled as ‘The Hundred’, the ECB intends to revolutionize the game of cricket with this venture.
Unlike the other T20 competitions, ECB has tweaked the format completely. So, without wasting much time, here are more insights into the various aspects of this tournament.
ABOUT ‘THE HUNDRED’
‘The Hundred’ would be played over a 38-day long period. 8 city-based teams would play in the competition, with each Team playing four Home games and four Away games. Meaning which, 32 games would constitute the league phase before the playoffs.
This competition would follow the ‘IPL-style’ playoffs to decide the eventual winners. The third and fourth-placed teams would play a knockout game to set up a clash with the loser of the Qualifier-1, which would take place between the top two teams. The winner of this match would progress to the finals for the summit clash against the winner of Qualifier-1.
THE FORMAT
ECB has decided to move away from the traditional 6-ball over with a completely new format. In ‘The Hundred’, each innings would last for 100 balls, which is equivalent to 16.4 overs in the regular format. Each bowler can bowl a maximum of 20 balls, to be bowled either in 5 or 10 consecutive deliveries. The batsmen will change ends after a period of 10 balls.
The power-play will be signaled at the start of an innings, and will remain in place for the first 25 deliveries. Only two fielders will be allowed outside the 30-yard circle during this phase. The bowling side can also make use of the 150-second strategic timeout during an innings.
PLAYER DRAFT
Two-player drafts have taken place to decide the constituents of each squad. While the first player draft on October 3, 2019, alloted the marquee players to each of the teams, the second player draft on October 20, 2019 completed the core of the franchises.
Most of the global T20 stars had their names taken by the franchises in the player draft. However, teams chose to ignore veteran T20 players such as Chris Gayle and Lasith Malinga for the event.
THE FRANCHISES
The eight franchises that would take part in the competition are Birmingham Phoenix, London Spirit, Manchester Originals, Northern Superchargers, Oval Invincibles, Southern Brave, Trent Rockets, and Welsh Fire.
Each franchise would have men and a women’s team, both of whom will play the competition simultaneously. All the franchises would consist of a maximum of 15 players. Teams can pick only 3 overseas stars, and they should also include two performers from the T20 Blast. Franchisees must also sign a minimum of one England Test player to their squads.
REACTIONS:
Moving away completely from the traditional format has seen mix reactions from players and Critics across the World. The England players have mostly been optimistic about the format, while players and Critics around the World say the format won’t last long, and is innovation just for the sake of innovation.
While it is certainly a good idea to bring something new to the table, moving away from the traditional 6-ball over, new power-play restrictions, removing LBW, commercialization, etc. would add to the complications.
Let’s now look at how the squads of all the 8 teams stack up for ‘The Hundred’ tournament.
THE SQUADS OF 8 TEAMS:
Birmingham Phoenix
Central Contract Player: Chris Woakes
Overseas Players: Kane Williamson, Adam Zampa, and Shaheen Afridi
Other Players: Moeen Ali, Pat Brown, Liam Livingston, Ravi Bopara, Benny Howell, Tom Helm, Adam Hose, Cameron Delport, Henry Brookes, Riki Wessels, Chris Cooke
London Spirit
Central Contract Player: Rory Burns
Overseas Players: Glenn Maxwell, Mohammad Nabi, and Mohammad Amir
Other Players: Dan Lawrence, Eoin Morgan, Roelof van der Merwe, Mark Wood, Joe Denly, Dan Lawrence, Mason Crane, Kyle Abbott, Adam Rossington, Zak Crawley, Jade Dernbach, Luis Reece
Manchester Originals
Central Contract Player: Jos Buttler
Overseas Players: Imran Tahir, Daniel Christian, and Mitchell Santner
Other Players: Saqib Mahmood, Matt Parkinson, Dane Vilas, Phil Salt, Tom Abell, Wayne Madsen, Wayne Parnell, Joe Clarke, Marchant de Lange, Ed Pollock, Eddie Byrom.
Northern Superchargers
Central Contract Player: Ben Stokes
Overseas Players: Aaron Finch, Mujeeb ur Rahman, and Chris Lynn
Other Players: Adil Rashid, David Willey, Adam Lyth, Richard Gleeson, Ben Foakes, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, David Wiese, Nathan Rimmington, Brydon Carse, Ed Barnard, John Simpson
Oval Invincibles
Central Contract Player: Sam Curran
Overseas Players: Sunil Narine, Sandeep Lamichhane, and Fabian Allen
Other Players: Tom Curran, Jason Roy, Sam Billings, Rilee Rossouw, Reece Topley, Hardus Viljoen, Alex Blake, Will Jacks, Chris Wood, Nathan Sowter, Laurie Evans
Southern Brave
Central Contract Player: Jofra Archer
Overseas Players: Andre Russell, David Warner, and Shadab Khan
Other Players: Chris Jordan, James Vince, Tymal Mills, Ross Whiteley, Delray Rawlins, Ollie Pope, George Garton, Alex Davies, Max Waller, Craig Overton
Trent Rockets
Welsh Fire
Central Contract Player: Jonny Bairstow
Overseas Players: Mitchell Starc, Steve Smith, and Qais Ahmed
Other Players: Tom Banton, Colin Ingram, Ben Duckett, Ravi Rampaul, Simon Harmer, Liam Plunkett, Ryan ten Doeschate, David Payne, Ryan Higgins, Danny Briggs, Leus du Plooy
ALSO READ: IPL 2020 Auctions: This West Indies player is likely to attract huge bids
Nesara is an Author at AK4Tsay1 Cricalytics. He is an Engineer by profession. Watching Cricket, Football & Movies is one of his topmost priorities within the day.
Pingback: India vs SA 2019: Test Series Player Performance Report Card