The most successful team in the Hundred’s short history has been rebranded out of existence. Oval Invincibles, winners of five titles across the tournament’s first five seasons, will play the 2026 campaign as MI London after Reliance Strategic Business Ventures completed its purchase of a 49 percent stake in the franchise, finalizing the last of the equity deals that emerged from the ECB’s sale of Hundred franchises.
The Last Domino Falls
The Reliance-Surrey agreement was the final piece of a process that had dragged on longer than any of the other seven franchise sales. Surrey County Cricket Club retains 51 percent ownership of the team, with Reliance’s subsidiary taking the remaining 49 percent stake, valuing the franchise at £123 million. That figure ranks second only to the £295 million valuation attached to the Lord’s-based London Spirit, underlining just how much the Oval’s ground and the Invincibles’ trophy cabinet were worth to an incoming investor. Across all eight franchises, the completed round of sales has now pushed the Hundred’s overall valuation past £975 million, a private-equity influx English cricket’s domestic game had never previously seen.
Joining A Global Franchise Family
The rebrand slots South London’s team into the same portfolio as the rest of the Ambani family’s Mumbai Indians network, joining the flagship IPL franchise alongside MI Cape Town in the SA20, MI Emirates in the ILT20, and MI New York in Major League Cricket. MI London becomes the fourth Hundred franchise with Indian ownership involvement, alongside Manchester Super Giants under RPSG, Sunrisers Leeds under the Sun Group, and Southern Brave under GMR. The new team will play in royal blue with gold trim, discarding the teal and mint green colors the Invincibles wore through all five of their title-winning campaigns.
A Trophy Cabinet Being Rebranded, Not Rebuilt
What makes the change sting for long-time supporters is the scale of what is being renamed. The Oval Invincibles won three consecutive men’s titles from 2023 through 2025 and the women’s team claimed back-to-back championships in the competition’s first two editions, in 2021 and 2022, making the club the most decorated in Hundred history by a wide margin. That entire era of dominance will now sit under a name and color scheme that has no connection to the shirts fans wore to the Kia Oval to watch it happen.
Fans Offered A Kit Amnesty, Not Everyone Convinced
To ease the transition, MI London and Surrey offered supporters who had bought Invincibles replica shirts the chance to trade them in for the new kit through a so-called “kit amnesty,” available exclusively to fans attending the team’s opening matchday fixture against Sunrisers Leeds. The gesture has not won over everyone. One longtime supporter, asked whether he intended to keep following the team under its new identity, put it bluntly: “Nah, they said it’s not for me when they launched it and I’ve taken them at their word.” The comment reflects a broader unease among traditionalists who see the rebrand as evidence that the Hundred’s original county-rooted identity is being steadily replaced by an internationally recognizable, marketable brand built for global audiences rather than local fan bases.
The Counter-Argument From Investors
Surrey and league officials see it differently. From their vantage point, the Reliance deal — like the RPSG, Sun Group and GMR investments before it — brings serious long-term capital, global marketing reach and cross-league synergies that a purely county-run team could never generate on its own. Aligning the Oval franchise with the recognizable Mumbai Indians branding, in this view, is precisely what turns a domestic English T20 competition into a globally followed product, and the near-quadrupling of top wages in the competition over just two years, from £125,000 in 2024 to roughly £200,000 by 2025’s highest band, is offered as proof that private investment is translating directly into player earnings and, by extension, quality of competition.
What’s Next For The Hundred’s New Landscape
With all eight ownership deals now finalized, attention turns to how quickly the newly-invested franchises translate financial firepower into on-field results. MI London opens its 2026 title defense — in name only, given the rebrand — against Sunrisers Leeds, and further roster moves are expected as investors look to secure marquee retentions and direct signings ahead of the next auction cycle. The bigger test for the competition will be whether audiences follow the money and the new branding as readily as they followed the Invincibles’ shirt, or whether the Hundred’s original grassroots identity, forged over five seasons, proves harder to sell off than the equity itself.
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