This year everything is changing and ‘another IPL’ style men’s and women’s cricket event, which is actually quite different from the IPL, is in the news in India. Is this The Hundred Event?
Its organiser: England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and it is played in the UK.
Format: To differentiate itself from the T20 league crowd, a new 100-ball format (100 balls in an innings) was adopted. However, its records will be counted under T20 only.
How long is a match: About two and a half hours.
Some more special playing conditions:
* 10 balls in an over, bowling from the other end after every 10 balls, all these 10 balls of an over can be bowled by one, or if desired, even two bowlers (5+5) (this will be decided by the captain).
* A bowler can bowl a maximum of 20 balls in a match.
Timeout: Two and a half minutes for each bowling team. During this time, coaches can talk to their players on tactics on the ground.
Power Play: 25-balls for each team at the start of each innings.
Teams: 8 teams based on 7 cities. The team for 2026 is:
• Birmingham Phoenix (Edgbaston)
• London Spirit (Lord’s)
• Manchester Supergiants (Emirates Old Trafford)
• MI London (The Kia Oval)
• Southern Brave (Southampton)
• Sunrisers Leeds (Headingley)
• Trent Rockets (Trent Bridge)
• Welsh Fire (Sophia Gardens)
Defending champions: Northern Superchargers (renamed Sunrisers Leeds) won the women’s event, while Oval Invincibles (renamed MI London) won the men’s event for the third consecutive year.
Auction for 2026: For the first time, a player auction took place for teams after retention (4) or direct signing (or a combination of both, 2+2).
So in this way, after 5 seasons, this year The Hundred is being played in a new style, which experts are calling as coloring this IPL tournament in its own colors. In fact, in order to provide relief to debt-ridden county cricket clubs, the ECB decided to sell part of the ownership rights of the teams in The Hundred to raise money. This action got the name of ‘The great Hundred sell-off’. This is one of the biggest stories of cricket.
In this unique auction of all 8 teams, the valuation of each team was fixed (for which bidding took place) and the share was sold accordingly. The total price of all 8 teams came out to be 975 million pounds (about Rs. 12038 crores) and by selling the share, it came to 520 million pounds (about Rs. 6420 crores). England had never expected to get such money.
He was even surprised to see the bidding war for the Lord’s Hundred franchise between Silicon Valley tech giants and an IPL billionaire (Ambani family) to increase the valuation, which lasted almost three hours. Believe me, the valuation of the Lord’s team increased by an average of 3 million pounds (about Rs 38 crore) every 15 minutes. In the end, Silicon Valley cricket enthusiasts, including Google and Microsoft, won by quoting London Spirit at 295 million pounds (about Rs. 3644 crores) and paying 144.5 million pounds (about Rs. 1785 crores) for a 49% stake.
Meet all 8 new team owners:
Reliance Industries Limited: Bought 49% stake in Oval Invincibles team for £123 million. He is the owner of IPL team Mumbai Indians and purchased the team and renamed it MI London.
Knighthead Capital Management: Bought a 49% stake in the Birmingham Phoenix team for £82 million. It is a New York-based investment fund and also owns the Birmingham City FC team.
‘Tech Titans’: Buy 49% stake in London Spirit team for £295 million. Eleven big names from Silicon Valley, including Satyan Gajwani (Co-founder of Major League Cricket and Vice-Chairman of Times Internet), Satya Nadella (CEO, Microsoft), Shantanu Narayan (CEO, Adobe) and Sundar Pichai (CEO, Google), formed a consortium named Cricket Investor Holdings Limited for this.
Sanjay Govil: Bought 50% stake in Welsh Fire team for £64 million. If payment is made in 5 years then the price will be calculated at 80 million pounds. He is an Indian-American tech entrepreneur and also owns the MLC franchise, Washington Freedom.
RP Sanjiv Goenka Group: Buys 70% stake in Manchester Originals team for £107 million. He is the owner of IPL team Lucknow Supergiants (the most expensive franchise of IPL). The purchased team was renamed Manchester Supergiants.
The Sun Group: Bought 100% of the Northern Superchargers team for £100.5 million. This Chennai group is the owner of IPL team Sunrisers Hyderabad. The purchased team was renamed Sunrisers Leeds.
Kane International/Ares Management: Bought 49% of Trent Rockets team for £79 million.
GMR Group: In partnership with Hampshire (which he also owns), purchased a 49% stake in the Southern Brave team for £98 million. He is an equal shareholder of IPL team Delhi Capitals. The name of the purchase team did not change.
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