The BCCI has issued NOCs to four Indian Women players to participate in the inaugural edition of The Hundred. Signings are expected to be announced soon.
The Hundred is a new concept initiated by the England and Wales Cricket Board, and as the name suggests, there will be 100 balls per innings. It is an eight-team tournament which will commence on the 21st of July at the Oval in London. The final will be played exactly a month later at the iconic Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.
According to ESPNCricinfo, the BCCI has already sent out the NOCs to the ECB. Thus, the official announcement regarding the player signing for all four players will be made soon. In fact, during the home series against South Africa, Smriti Mandhana had confirmed that the BCCI were in talks with the ECB about the participation in The Hundred.
These four contracted players will be a part of the Indian contingent that travels to the United Kingdom for their multi-format series against England. The players who will be contracted with franchises in The Hundred will extend their stay in the UK.
The Indian Women’s cricket team are scheduled to play one Test match, three ODIs and as many T20Is. India will be playing a Test match after seven years as they last faced South Africa back in 2014. That will be played in Bristol. Meanwhile, the three ODIs will be played in Bristol, Taunton and Worcester before the tour ends with three T20Is which will be played at Northampton, Hove and Chelmsford.
Four Indian players have been a part of the now-defunct Kia Super League which was ECB’s premier domestic T20 league for women’s cricket, and it has now made way for this new tournament, The Hundred. Harmanpreet Kaur (Lancashire Thunder), Smriti Mandhana (Western Storm), Jemimah Rodrigues (Yorkshire Diamonds), and Deepti Sharma (Western Storm) were the players that featured in the KSL. Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana played two seasons – 2018 and 2019 while the other two featured only in 2019. Mandhana was also named the player of the tournament in the 2018 edition of the Kia Super League.
Each of the eight teams can have a maximum of three overseas players in their squad. 20 out of the 24 overseas player signings have been completed, with Ellyse Perry being the latest one. The premier Australian all-rounder joined the Birmingham Phoenix and became the 11th Australian player to be signed for The Hundred.
The four teams with vacant overseas slots are Southern Brave, London Spirit, Manchester Originals and Northern Superchargers. Apart from this, all eight teams have almost finalized their squads. There are no player drafts for the women’s edition of The Hundred, and the respective head coaches pick the teams. The teams have time till the end of June to finalize their respective squads.
The inaugural edition was supposed to take place in 2020, but it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Players who were issued contracts in 2020 had the option of rolling it over for the 2021 season with the same salary bracket, or they could even negotiate with other franchises. Most of the top overseas players from around the world have signed up for The Hundred.
