The Hundred 2023: ECB to tempt star English cricketers with incentives to participate in tournament

The English Cricket Board (ECB) will offer incentives to their star cricketers to take part in the Hundred 2023. It has been reported that the board is looking to involve the majority of their all-format players in the premier franchise tournament in the upcoming season. 

After the conclusion of the 2022 edition, the ECB announced that the tournament will have a four-week separate window in August from 2023. The decision was taken to avoid clashes with England's Test team's schedule. In the first two editions, England played against India (2021) and South Africa (2022) which led to star cricketers missing a few games or even the entire tournament. For instance, England's red-ball captain Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow skipped the entire tournament to focus on the series against South Africa.

English players with an all-format central contract status will be paid £125,000

To overcome this issue, The Hundred 2023 will run from August 1-27, immediately after the Ashes 2023. However, the players involved in the fifth Test are likely to miss the first few games in the Hundred 2023 but the board is looking to avoid this issue by offering them lucrative incentives on their contracts.

ESPNcricinfo has reported that the players with an all-format central contract will be paid £125,000 to play the entire 2023 edition. In 2022, they were paid around £50,000 to play three matches with an additional £5,000 for additional games. 

In another major development, every Hundred team will get a chance to sign a single all-format English star, if they succeed to reach an agreement with a player. The players with an all-format status are: Jofra Archer (Southern Brave), Jonny Bairstow (Welsh Fire), Jos Buttler (Manchester Originals), Sam Curran (Oval Invincibles), Joe Root (Trent Rockets), Ben Stokes (Northern Superchargers), Chris Woakes (Birmingham Phoenix), and Mark Wood (London Spirit).

In case two or more teams decide not to retain or fail to reach an agreement with the players, a mini-draft will be held for the 2023 edition. Other centrally contracted English players, including Moeen Ali, Zak Crawley, Liam Livingstone, Ollie Pope, and Adil Rashid will be part of the main draft. The teams can retain up to 10 players and the retention window will be closed on February 14.