The first-ever Hundred auction will take place next week, with an IPL-style bidding system taking over from the previously existing draft. Here's all you need to know about the auction.
The auction for the men's competition is set to take place on Thursday, March 12, with the women's competition auction taking place the day before. More than 300 players could go under the gavel across both auctions, with team lineups set to undergo the biggest shake-up in the competition's history.
Previously, players were selected for The Hundred based on a draft system, with pre-set salary brackets determining player earnings. After the ECB sold its stake in The Hundred franchises earlier this year, including to four IPL team-owners, The Hundred Playing Working Group – comprised of representatives from all eight teams, as well as PCA and ECB representatives – agreed that an auction model would take over.
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Hundred 2026 auction: How many pre-signings are allowed?
Ahead of the auction, teams were able to sign up to four players directly. Of those four, a minimum of one had to be a retention from the previous year's squad, and a maximum of two England players with central contracts and two overseas players could be signed.
Of the men's teams, all eight franchises opted to use the maximum of four direct signings, while Manchester Originals Women, Sunrisers Leeds Women, Welsh Fire Women and MI London Women chose to pre-sign three players each.
Each men's team who chose to pre-sign four players has had £950,000 taken out of their salary pot for the auction, while each women's team with four pre-signings has had £360,000 taken out. The four women's teams who pre-signed three players have had £310,000 deducted from their salary pot.
The starting salary point for men's teamswas £2.05 million, with women's team salary pots standing at £880,000.
Also read: Record-breaking Pakistan T20 World Cup opener left off Hundred auction longlist
How were The Hundred auction longlists created?
The longlists for each auction were released in February, with 243 players on the list for the men's auction and 178 on the women's. The lists were created after around 1,000 players registered themselves for the auction. Each franchise submitted 75-100 player nominations, from which the two longlists were formed.
The lists also feature hero players, which are broken down into sets of marquee players, Tier One players and Tier Two players. Those players were selected based on the number of nominations received from franchises and career statistics using data from CricViz.
'Hero', 'ranked', and 'nominated' players: Which names will be called first in the auction?
Two sets of Marquee Players will be called our first in the auction, with the first set being domestic players and the second being international.
In the men's auction the first set of names to be read out will be Jonny Bairstow, Adil Rashid, James Vince, Jordan Cox, and Joe Root, with the first set of international players being Aiden Markram, David Miller, Sunil Narine, Haris Rauf, and Daryl Mitchell.
In the women's auction, Dani Gibson, Sarah Glenn, Amy Jones, Tammy Beaumont and Davina Perrin will be read out first, before Nadine De Klerk, Sophie Devine, Beth Mooney, Sophie Molineux, and Deepti Sharma come under the hammer.
Following the Marquee sets, Tier One players will be read out, followed by Tier Two. This phase of the auction is called the 'Hero' player auction. Once all of the names have been read out from the three categories, teams will have the opportunity to nominate 25 players each – including unsold 'hero' players – and those with the most nominations will become 'ranked' players. Teams will then bid on the ranked players.
After the ranked player auction, the final round will see nominated players bid for. This phase of the auction will start with a random draw to determine the order in which teams will sign nominated players. Not every name on the longlist is guaranteed to be read out in the auction, with those at the bottom of the list only coming up for sale if spots in squads remain open.
How much money do teams have to spend?
Player salaries have been increased this year with each team having a starting pot of £2.05 million to spend on their men's squad, and £880,000 on their women's squad. After player retentions all eight men's sides have £1.1 million left to spend. The women's teams who chose to pre-sign four players have £520,000 left to spend, while the teams who chose to sign three have £570,000.
Each team will need to form a squad of 16-18 men's players, and a squad of 15 women's players. Teams will also not have the Right To Match option this year, which was in place for last year's draft. Players have set their reserve prices according to the boundaries set out before the auction, with their reserve price being the minimum a team can spend on them.
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