The lack of English captains in The Hundred shows how power has shifted to franchise owners above coaches, says Lauren Winfield-Hill.
Speaking on Wisden Women's Cricket Weekly podcast, Winfield-Hill expressed her frustration at the lack of English captains in the Hundred. The 2025 campaign saw five out the eight women’s franchises in the Hundred have English captains, however this year's competition sees only three have English skippers, with Holly Armitage at MI London, Charlie Dean at London Spirit and Dani Gibson with Sunrisers Leeds after securing a record deal worth £190,000.
“It's disappointing, no doubt about it. I think it depends on the relationship with the owners and the head coach as well a little bit.” said Winfield-Hill. “The world we live in everybody wants the young superstars and the up-and-coming rising stars of the game. They're the ones who get bums on seats, whether it's in a leadership position or signings in the auction.
“I think potentially in some teams the power may lie more with the owners than the head coaches. Money is power and that's just the nature of it. Would MI naturally have chosen Holly Armitage [as captain]? Maybe not. She's not a huge shiny name in the international world, but Lisa's [Lisa Keightley] obviously worked with her a lot and knows the qualities that Holly has, and they have that relationship.”
The ECB sold its 49 per cent stake in each Hundred franchise at the end of last year, with private investors now owning a proportion of each team. Four of those investors also own IPL teams, and have other franchise interests in teams around the world. The first player auction for The Hundred was held earlier this year, taking over from the draft system used in previous editions. Teams retained up to four players from their 2025 squads, resulting in significant change over in personal for this year's competition.
The reduction in English captains in the women’s competition puts it at odds with other franchise teams around the world. Three out of the five WPL teams are captained by India players, while Cricket Australia have used the WBBL to give younger national players like Phoebe Litchfield captaincy experience. The lack of captaincy experience among younger players in England’s squad was highlighted last year, when Heather Knight stepped down from her captaincy role after nine years in post, leaving few tried and tested options to replace her.
“The bottom line is it is quite disappointing,” said Winfield-Hill. “The fact that we aren't exposing a lot of English players to these leadership positions, because it's a little bit like what's happening in the men's game as well when they're like, 'Oh who's going to captain the Test side?' I just think it's got to be a constant conveyor belt that is exposed, and you want a handful of people that could do it at any given moment.
“I know in terms of at Sunrisers, Adi [Adrian Birrell] spoke to a few of us about captaincy and then obviously choosing Gibbo [Gibson] and that sort of stuff. He was really open with that and he's strong,” said Winfield-Hill.
Winfield-Hill served as the inaugural captain for the Northern Superchargers in 2021 and later captained the Oval Invincibles in 2024 and 2025.
“When you're building a team especially this year with the change in teams you sort of feel like it's a new cycle. I guess it’s like who’s going to take that team forward on this cycle potentially. Ideally in a franchise world you want to keep some sort of core together for two or three years and see how many trophies you can win.” Winfield-Hill said. “You don't want to be chopping and changing every year, especially from a leadership point of view, so I guess it's somebody that can carry the bat forward for the next two or three years.”
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