The Hundred introduces women’s draft for 2023 edition

The Hundred is introducing a draft for the women’s competition in 2023, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has announced.

It will become the first major sporting competition in the UK to launch a women’s player draft, representing another move towards parity between the men’s and women’s competitions.

There has been a draft in the men’s competition since the tournament’s inception in 2020, while the women’s franchises picked their players through an open market, until now.

On the draft, Nick Friend, who leads The Cricketer‘s coverage of the women’s game, stated: “I worry that it will tear up the identities of teams that the fans have grown accustomed to over the last two years.”

A minimum of 32 domestic and overseas players will be recruited through the draft.

However, whereas the men’s teams pick all their players through the draft system, the women’s iteration will be a partial draft.

Raf Nicholson, the editor of CRICKETher, was unhappy with the confusion that was created by the initial announcement of the draft, given its partial nature.

She said: “I think we can all understand conceptually a full draft quite easily. You put all of the names in, and then the teams pick them and they go around in order and they each pick one, one by one.

“But for the women’s draft, you’ve got these different phases, you know, you’ve got the teams can choose to retain four players and then the draft happens.”

This feeling of confusion surrounding the draft was echoed by Katya Witney, content executive at Wisden.

She said: “The Hundred is about making cricket accessible, so why then make it inaccessible by putting in a draft format that is difficult to understand.

“You need to make it as simple as possible, so don’t needlessly complicate it.”

The third edition of The Hundred will take place in the summer of 2023. However, it was determined that the introduction of a draft for the women’s tournament was not possible for the first two tournaments.

Friend stated: “I think they have introduced the women’s draft at the earliest opportunity to do it.

“In 2023, there will be nearly 100 professionals in English women’s cricket, and the vast majority of them will be involved in The Hundred.”

“It comes down to depth. In [the first year of The Hundred], a draft simply was not possible given that women’s cricket was less than 50% professionalised at this point.”

In late October, the ECB announced it will be funding 80 professional women players by February 2023, double what the figure was in 2020, meaning these players will be paid enough to play cricket full-time.

All three experts agreed that The Hundred has certainly had a positive impact on moving towards a fully professionalised women’s game.

Despite changes being made in a positive direction, Nicholson believes the fact the draft is only partial is a reflection that there is still a way to go before full professionalism is reached.

She said: “We are still not at a place in the women’s game where it’s professional enough at the domestic level for a full draft to be possible.

“I think one of the barriers to women’s domestic cricket going fully professional is the fact that there’s a lot of vested interest within men’s cricket .”

Teams will first be able to name up to four of their current players they wish to retain, therefore confirming them for the 2023 season, and meaning they will not be included in the draft.

After their retentions, the franchises will use the draft to bring the number of players in their squad to eight. For instance, if Southern Brave make three retentions, they will get five draft picks.

The draft will be conducted in the reverse order of the standings from 2022, meaning Welsh Fire, who finished bottom, will get the first pick, with the 2021 and 2022 champions, Oval Invincibles, going last.

Witney takes issue with this, stating: “I don’t necessarily see why the Invincibles should be punished for creating a team that’s won it twice.”

Each team has also been given a ‘right to match’ card. This will enable them to retain a player from their 2022 squad even if another side has bid on them, given they have space in their salary band.

The remaining seven players for each side will then be chosen through an open market.

There was a mutual feeling amongst the experts that the announcement of a women’s draft was not a surprise.

Nicholson said: “It felt slightly inevitable that they were going to move in the direction of having a draft for the women.”

She believed that, given there is a draft for the men’s Hundred, sooner or later the same structure would have been implemented for the women’s tournament.

Witney questioned the reasoning behind the introduction of a draft, believing the women’s competition didn’t need to be a carbon copy of the men’s Hundred.

She said “Trying to make it the same as the men’s is not going to work. They are two distinct things, even if they are under the same brand.

“They are two distinct competitions with distinct pros and cons, and differing ways in which they work.”

Friend agreed with this, saying: “I do not think there being a men’s draft but no women’s is a bad thing.”

However, the experts did agree that there were some positives with the women’s draft.

Friend believes it will force teams to think harder about recruitment, and as a result, think about players more, which he sees as a “really positive move”.

He also said there will be more left-field picks, especially for players who offer something a little bit different, such as leg spinners, or left-hand batters.

Witney said the nature of the draft means more overseas players might not get involved, as the uncertainty, and the ever-growing number of franchises all over the world, means they won’t want to risk playing somewhere for a coach they didn’t want to play.

Therefore, Witney believes this offers homegrown talent an opportunity on the biggest stage.