The Hundred Auctions 2026 Guide - All You Need To Know

The Hundred will have its first auction on March 11 (women's) and March 12 (men's) at Piccadilly Lights, in Central London. Since its inception back in 2021 until last year, the tournament has used a draft system to recruit players for the respective franchises. However, from this year, it will move to an IPL-style auction model.

The big change was made because of the new owners coming on board, buying the franchises, and pushing for a change to the more transparent auction-style model. It was further given a green signal by the Hundred's playing working group and ratified by the board of the tournament.

Which IPL Owners Have Stake In The Hundred Teams?

IPL team owners have made inroads in the Hundred last year:

- Reliance Industries (owners of Mumbai Indians) have bought a 49% share in Oval Invincibles for 60.3 million pounds.

- RPSG Group (owners of Lucknow Super Giants) have bought a 70% share in Manchester Originals for 81.2 million pounds.

- Sun Group (owners of Sunrisers Hyderabad) have bought 100% share in Northern Superchargers for 100 million pounds.

- GMR Group (co-owners of Delhi Capitals) have bought a 49% share in Southern Brave for 48 million pounds.

The impact is seen straight away as three teams have changed their previous names to IPL style names. Oval Invincibles are now known as MI London, Manchester Originals have turned into Manchester Super Giants, while Northern Superchargers are now Sunrisers Leeds.

Meanwhile, other teams have also rebranded themselves, with Southern Braves changing their colours from green to navy and red; Sunrisers' jersey will be in orange with black trim; and London Spirit have brought in bacon-and-egg into their branding.

What Is The New Player Retention Rule?

This will be like a mega-auction, which you are used to seeing in the IPL. It's also being termed as a "reset" (all change) by The Hundred's managing director Virkam Banerjee. Each team can only have a maximum of four pre-signed players before the auctions, which can also be those players who haven't represented the franchise ever.

Significant Rise In Players' Contract After New Investment

The new investment has also positively impacted the salary cap of both men and women players featuring in The Hundred. There has been a 45% rise in men's salary cap from last year to 2.05 million pounds per team, while the salary cap of every women's team has doubled to 880,000 pounds per team.

The top salaries have also escalated with England white ball skipper, Harry Brook, raking a contract worth 465,000 pounds from Sunrisers Leeds, while Lauren Bell and Nat Sciver-Brunt signed 140,000 pounds contracts each with Southern Brave and Trent Rockets respectively.

Purse Remaining With Each Franchise (Both Men's And Women's)

All eight women's teams have spent between 310,000 and 360,000 pounds, depending on whether they have pre-signed three to four players. It means that going into the auction, either they'll have 570,000 or 520,000 pounds in their kitty.

Meanwhile, the men's team have exhausted all their 950,000 pounds marked for pre-signed players and now have only 1.1 million pounds each for the auction.

Minimum/Maximum Players Requirement For Each Team

Each team (Men's and Women's) are required to have between 14 and 16 players in their squad for the end of the auctions. They will add two more players via wildcard draft before the start of the tournament. These signings will be done only at their base price - 15,000 pounds (women's) and 31,000 pounds (men's).

Is There Any Cap On Overseas Signings?

Every franchise (men's and women's) can add only a maximum of 4 overseas players in their squad and playing XIs.

The Hundred: How the Auction Process Works?

There will be 10 marquee players in both the auctions, and their names will be the first ones to be announced. After that, the names of Tier 1 and Tier 2 lists of players will come up in the auction based on their roles—batters, bowlers, all-rounders, and wicketkeepers. Bids will be placed by teams in fixed increments till no team wants to bid further.

After the lunch break, teams will have the luxury to nominate up to 25 players each, including unsold players. These players will then be put up for bidding. In the third and final stage, teams will be invited to nominate individual players, and each nomination will act as a starting bid at the player’s base price.

The Hundred: Top Buys (Men's And Women's)

The top domestic players in the auction will be - Dani Gibson, Sarah Glenn, Amy Jones, Davina Perrin and Linsey Smith. While, the top overseas names in the auction include Nadine de Klerk, Beth Mooney, Sophie Molineux, Deepti Sharma and Richa Ghosh.

Top domestic men's players in Men's auction are - Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Jordan Cox, James Coles, Tom Curran and Adil Rashid among domestic players, while players like Aiden Markram, Finn Allen and Trent Boult could be the top foreign picks.