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Shaheen Afridi | Source: Twitter
The highly-anticipated third edition of The Hundred is just around the corner, featuring eight teams vying for the ultimate prize. The tournament is set to kick off on August 1 and run until the 27th of the month.
The draft for the same took place on Thursday, March 23rd, allowing the eight teams to bolster their rosters ahead of the showpiece event with a minimum of 14 players from a pool of 30 available players.
The eight teams namely, Welsh Fire, Southern Brave, Northern Superchargers, Oval Invincibles, Birmingham Phoenix, London Spirit, Manchester Originals and Trent Rockets - had the option to retain up to 10 players from their 2022 squads alongside their centrally-contracted England men's player.
Majority of the teams used that option, with the exception of Northern Superchargers who kept only nine players in addition to England Test captain Ben Stokes.
Welsh Fire, who had disastrous couple of seasons in the last two years, retained five players and centrally-contracted Jonny Bairstow, giving them an upper hand in the draft where they needed to fill 8 open slots.
Despite the presence of several high-profile overseas players such as Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, Kieron Pollard, and Andre Russell, it was the domestic players who drew the most attention at the draft, leaving these overseas stars unsold.
Following the completion of the Vitality Blast group stages, each team will have the opportunity to add two more players as "wildcards," in addition to any replacement players needed prior to the August 1 kickoff of The Hundred.
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Welsh Fire
Retained: Jonny Bairstow (central contract), Joe Clarke, Ollie Pope, David Payne, Jake Ball, George Scrimshaw
Draft picks: Tom Abell, David Willey, Shaheen Afridi, Glenn Phillips, Haris Rauf, Roelof van der Merwe, Stevie Eskinazi, Dan Douthwaite
Southern Brave
Retained: Jofra Archer (central contract), James Vince, Chris Jordan, Tymal Mills, Rehan Ahmed, Craig Overton, Finn Allen, George Garton, James Fuller, Alex Davies, Joe Weatherley
Draft picks: Leus du Plooy, Tim David, Devon Conway
Northern Superchargers
Retained: Ben Stokes (central contract), Adil Rashid, Harry Brook, Adam Lyth, Adam Hose, Brydon Carse, Matthew Potts, David Wiese, Wayne Parnell, Callum Parkinson
Draft picks: Reece Topley, Tom Banton, Michael Bracewell, Bas de Leede
Oval Invincibles
Retained: Sam Curran (central contract), Sunil Narine, Will Jacks, Jason Roy, Tom Curran, Sam Billings, Saqib Mahmood, Jordan Cox, Gus Atkinson, Danny Briggs, Nathan Sowter
Draft picks: Heinrich Klaasen, Ross Whiteley, Ihsanullah
Birmingham Phoenix
Retained: Chris Woakes (central contract), Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Shadab Khan, Adam Milne, Benny Howell, Will Smeed, Kane Richardson, Tom Helm, Chris Benjamin, Dan Mousley
Draft picks: Ben Duckett, Jamie Smith, Miles Hammond
London Spirit
Retained: Mark Wood (central contract), Glenn Maxwell, Nathan Ellis, Liam Dawson, Dan Lawrence, Zak Crawley, Jordan Thompson, Mason Crane, Adam Rossington, Chris Wood, Ravi Bopara
Draft picks: Mitchell Marsh, Olly Stone, Michael Pepper
Manchester Originals
Retained: Jos Buttler (central contract), Wanindu Hasaranga, Phil Salt, Jamie Overton, Tom Hartley, Richard Gleeson, Paul Walter, Josh Little, Wayne Madsen, Tom Lammonby, Mitchell Stanley
Draft picks: Laurie Evans, Ashton Turner, Josh Tongue
Trent Rockets
Retained: Joe Root (central contract), Rashid Khan, Dawid Malan, Alex Hales, Lewis Gregory, Luke Wood, Colin Munro, Sam Cook, Daniel Sams, Samit Patel, Matt Carter
Draft picks: Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Sam Hain, Brad Wheal
