The Hundred replaced its traditional player draft with a full auction for the first time in 2026, staging the women’s sale in London on March 11 and the men’s auction the following day, a structural shift organisers say better reflects true market value for players after several seasons of franchises complaining that the draft system undervalued in-form performers. A total of 178 players went under the hammer in the women’s auction alone, with 28 already retained or directly signed by franchises beforehand.
India wicketkeeper-batter Richa Ghosh secured a £50,000 deal, joining Smriti Mandhana at Manchester Super Giants after Mandhana had already been signed directly ahead of the auction, while all-rounder Deepti Sharma landed a contract with Sunrisers Leeds in what was described as a bargain given her recent white-ball form for India. Agents representing several Indian players said the auction format allowed clearer price discovery than the old draft, which relied on franchises submitting private preference lists rather than open bidding.
A Bigger Pot for Women’s Cricket
The overall salary pot for the Hundred’s women’s competition doubled for 2026, rising to £880,000 per team, while the men’s pot grew by 45 per cent to £2.05 million per side, changes organisers frame as proof the tournament’s commercial growth is being reinvested directly into player pay rather than solely into league marketing and production budgets. Birmingham Phoenix, London Spirit, Southern Brave and Trent Rockets were left with £520,000 remaining ahead of the women’s draft phase, while Manchester Super Giants, MI London, SunRisers Leeds and Welsh Fire carried slightly larger remaining budgets of £570,000, a gap the ECB attributed to differing levels of pre-auction retention spending across the eight franchises.
Why the Draft Was Scrapped
The Hundred’s original draft format, borrowed loosely from North American sports leagues, had drawn criticism from franchises and agents alike for years, with complaints centring on its inability to reflect genuine bidding competition for in-demand players. An auction format, already used successfully by the IPL and WPL, was seen by the England and Wales Cricket Board as a proven alternative that increases transparency around player valuations, and ECB officials have said early feedback from franchise owners has been overwhelmingly positive.
Star Retentions Ahead of the Auction
Several marquee names, including Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues, were locked in through direct retention or signing ahead of the auction itself, a mechanism designed to give franchises certainty over their most bankable stars while still allowing genuine market competition for the remaining player pool. That combination of retention plus auction mirrors the hybrid model the IPL has refined over multiple cycles, and several franchise executives said they had studied IPL retention strategy closely before finalising their own approach.
Reaction From Players and Agents
Player representatives have broadly welcomed the shift, arguing it rewards current form rather than historical reputation, though some have cautioned that auctions can also produce volatility, with in-form domestic players sometimes overlooked in fast-moving bidding rounds in favour of bigger international names. A handful of English domestic players reportedly went unsold entirely, prompting calls from the players’ association for a minimum guaranteed base-contract pool in future editions.
What’s Next
With rosters now set under the new system, attention turns to whether the auction format produces a more competitive tournament on the field when the Hundred returns to play later in the year, and whether the ECB extends the auction model, along with its expanded salary pots, into future editions as the competition continues courting global broadcast interest, with a formal review of the new system expected once the season concludes. The ECB has also said it will study how the auction affected competitive balance across the eight men’s and eight women’s franchises, given that one stated goal of the reform was to prevent any single team from repeatedly cornering the market on marquee talent. Early reaction from broadcasters has been positive, with production staff noting that live auction coverage itself generated meaningful additional viewership in the days before the tournament began, a secondary commercial benefit organisers had not fully anticipated when the switch from draft to auction was first proposed. Franchise executives across both competitions have said they expect the new system, once bedded in, to make roster planning more predictable year over year, since auction dynamics tend to produce clearer public benchmarks for player value than the closed-door deliberations that characterised the old draft process.