ECB plan huge wage hikes, increase in overseas player limit in the Hundred

Hundred franchises could make players direct offers of multi-year contracts worth up to £300,000 per season, if an overhaul to the tournament’s draft system being considered by the ECB is approved. The board is also considering lobbying the UK’s Home Office to permit each team in the Hundred to field a fourth overseas player in the XI, an increase from the current limit of three.

If the early-stage plans are approved and the sale process moves quickly, top salaries could climb from £125,000 to £300,000 in the men’s Hundred ahead of the 2025 season, and from £50,000 to over £100,000 in the women’s Hundred. The changes would put the Hundred’s total salary spend second to the IPL among men’s leagues, and second to the WPL among women’s leagues.

As a result, the ECB are considering allowing an updated recruitment model which would allow each franchise to make up to six direct overseas signings – three men’s and three women’s – on multi-year contracts, following the lead of several other leagues including the BBL, ILT20 and SA20. The existing draft system would remain but with increases in salary bands across the board, particularly at the top end.

Vikram Banerjee, who is running the sale process at the ECB, said recently that the Hundred has “fallen behind” a number of other short-form leagues in attracting top men’s players. “We are the sixth highest-payer in the men’s game,” Banerjee told the Business of Sport podcast. “We’re about to go seventh if we stay still at the moment – which we won’t.”

Banerjee also suggested that top salaries would grow at a much more significant rate than those at the bottom. “The 15th selection in a 15-man squad, with all due respect, you don’t need to pay huge sums for. They might be an up-and-coming player,” he said. “It’s that top three or four players [per team] that you do need to pay to get their time and their effort to be there, and we have fallen behind.”

The plans would also see each team able to sign one designated ‘England star’ on a multi-year deal, worth around £100,000 in the women’s competition and £250,000 in the men’s. The proposed increase in overseas players per playing XI from three to four would bring the tournament in line with the global standard set by the IPL, WPL, PSL and SA20.

ESPNcricinfo understands that while the plans have been circulated to prospective investors, they are at a relatively early stage and may not come to fruition until 2026, depending on the speed of the ongoing sale process. The ECB declined to comment.

“I don’t recognise his particular comments,” Richard Gould, the ECB’s chief executive, told the BBC last week in response to Modi’s criticism of the Hundred’s financial projections. “It wasn’t so long ago that he [Modi] had an article in the Telegraph saying he wanted to buy the competition for £1 billion.”

Gould insisted the ECB are “very confident” in the strength of English cricket. “We’ve got nearly 100 or so interested parties involved in [the Hundred sales process] which is a huge number… Everyone knows that, the money that comes in, we want to use it to protect and then supercharge the game throughout our county network and beyond.”

The Hundred’s 2025 season will start in early August, immediately after England’s men complete a Test series against India.

Matt Roller is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. @mroller98