The Hundred continues to confuse. There are the endless comments online that deride it and then the kids at the ground, rocking their Southern Brave merch and living in a different world. This is a transformative competition for women’s cricket that has also produced a wild, maddening gap in pay. The highest earners in the men’s tournament this year will make £200,000, £135,000 more than the best women’s players; the difference in 2024 was £75,000.
There is the mind-numbing debate over whether it should be a Twenty20 show, when the rhythm and beat is the same as that format. Another 20 balls in each innings is unlikely to lead to some utopia. The big one remains this, four seasons down: this is a cricket tournament in which the cricket is always battling for centrality, competing against the big-picture existential questions. Is it cutting through on the BBC? Will it expand? How does the rest of the summer fit around it? Whether David Willey should bowl 10 up front with the new ball becomes increasingly small fry.
Naturally, in discussing the latest edition – which begins at Lord’s on Tuesday – we can not kick off with a breakdown of Trent Rockets’ spin stocks. The off season brought the great sell-off, the sale of stakes in all eight teams producing an incoming windfall upwards of £500m. Four Indian Premier League sides entered the picture: Sun Group, which owns Sunrisers Hyderabad, bought Northern Superchargers outright while RPSG Group, which runs Lucknow Super Giants, acquired a 70% stake in Manchester Originals.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) rejoiced, with struggling counties suddenly able to address their wishlists. Six of the eight sales have been completed, with deals for Oval Invincibles and Rockets still “on track”, according to the ECB. The new team owners will be granted “operational control” in October. This is a placeholder season before the uber-rich enter their playground.
For the IPL franchises, it is a chance to continue their empire-building, all of them already in possession of teams in leagues elsewhere. The Originals and Superchargers are expected to change their names and the Invincibles – about to join the Mumbai Indians family (their affiliates include MI New York and MI Cape Town) – have been tipped for a re-brand, too.
For others it is a chance to turn childhood fandom into something more active. On the Sky Cricket Podcast in February, Nikesh Arora, leading a consortium of tech bros that forked out on London Spirit, explained the group’s motivations. “The best way to describe us is kids who wanted to be really good at cricket, who didn’t get there, who want to be back involved with the game.” And why the Spirit? “There is only one Lord’s, only one team that is connected to the home of cricket.”
Ultimately, this is a purchase that goes far beyond a four-year-old competition, the value coming in the history English cricket wrote for itself in the centuries before.
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If longstanding institutions are what appeal to these owners, they will take delight in the inclusion of a 43-year-old seamer. Jimmy Anderson has been signed up for his first go at the Hundred, ignored in the draft but given wildcard entry by the Originals. It was with merit, too, 17 wickets in this year’s Blast taken at 14.7.
His presence is significant, maybe something to cling on to for those bummed out by the premature end of the Test summer. A potential battle with David Warner, who will play for the Spirit, could be a thrill. It could also end up with the vibe of a testimonial, a reminder of what is not happening while this is on.
The club to challenge remains the Invincibles, who have won four titles, two each for the men and women. Marizanne Kapp is the clutch overseas all-rounder who rocks up every year and Alice Capsey has been doing this since she was 16. Capsey is joined again by Ryana MacDonald-Gay and Paige Scholfield, all three part of the Surrey side that triumphed in the Women’s Blast final in July. Meg Lanning is their big-name addition.
The Curran brothers are constants for the men, alongside Will Jacks and Sam Billings; the men’s Invincibles have six of the XI that played in their first game four years ago. There is a welcome familiarity here that often goes missing in the franchise world, where teams undergo extreme makeovers from one season to the next. This is a club that has been building an identity, only for an unclear picture to emerge as new investors arrive with their own ideas.
If you want certainty with the Hundred, there is this: this season marks the end of its turbulent beginning.
