Kamal Ghorui
MUMBAI: More than 50 Pakistan players (men and women) have registered for The Hundred auction, which will be held at Piccadilly Lights in London on March 11 (women’s competition) and March 12 (men’s competition). “The auction list includes more than 50 players from Pakistan,” a source tracking developments told TOI.
As per the ICC Future Tours Programme (FTP), Pakistan are scheduled to have an away Test series against West Indies in August. A full list of players registered for The Hundred auction will be released at 1 PM UK time (6.30 PM India time) on Friday.Last season, only two Pakistan players, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Wasim, featured in the tournament (for Northern Superchargers), while Pakistan-born Zafar Gohar was part of the Oval Invincibles squad.Six of the eight franchises, London Spirit (owned by US-based tech investors), MI Oval (Reliance Industries), Manchester SuperGiants (RPSG Group), Southern Brave (GMR Group), Sunrisers Leeds (Sun TV) and Welsh Fire (US-based Sanjay Govil), have Indian owners. Of these six, four teams are owned by Indian IPL franchises Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, Lucknow SuperGiants and Sunrisers Hyderabad.“The Hundred Auction will see over 200 players go under the hammer, with the sixteen men’s and women’s teams picking up to 14 players each as they take a big step towards filling their squads ahead of the sixth edition of The Hundred this summer,” the England & Wales Cricket Board stated in a media release on Thursday.The women’s auction register includes India’s swashbuckling opener Shafali Verma, Beth Mooney, Nadine de Klerk, Amy Jones and Davina Perrin.The men’s teams will bid for players with Joe Root, Quinton de Kock, Jason Holder, Haris Rauf and Adil Rashid potentially among the early contenders. Auctioneer Richard Madley will run proceedings across both days.The men’s teams have a salary pot of £2.05m, while the women’s teams have a salary pot of £880,000. Each team has already spent a portion of their pot on pre-auction direct signings and retentions.Teams are allowed up to four pre-auction signings from mid-November to the end of January. A maximum of three can be direct signings and must be overseas or England centrally contracted players. A minimum of one will be a retention, which can be any player — England centrally contracted, overseas or domestic.Across the auction, teams will compete to sign players across three phases: Hero Players, Ranked Players and Nominated Players. Teams will each provide a long-list of players they are most interested in signing ahead of the auction, with the phases reflecting aggregated interest in each player.
