Earlier this week, the Hundred announced that for its third edition, in 2023, it will be introducing a player draft for the Women’s Hundred. Being the first women’s player draft in any UK major sport bears the question, is this a good idea?
Statistics published by the ECB showed that for the second edition of the tournament, approximately 271,000 people attended the women’s games which were played before the men’s games, becoming a global record for a women’s cricket competition. All eight venues used broke their previous best for domestic women’s attendances — beating the previous year and the UK domestic record for a women’s game was broken twice at Lord’s this year with 17,387 attending London Spirit vs Oval Invincibles and 20,840 people came for The Hundred final. The average attendance ended up at 10,400 for the women’s games in 2022 building on its success from its inaugural year.
An American idea influencing cricket?
Player drafts are common across the world of cricket, seen often in franchise tournaments such as the Indian Premier League (IPL), Big Bash League (BBL) and the Men’s Hundred. Rarely, however, do we see this in women’s sports. The only major women’s draft that comes to mind is the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in the USA where the concept of a ‘draft’ originates. As mentioned the men’s Hundred has always had a draft, the first one taking place in October 2019 before the tournament was postponed due to Covid-19. The women did not have a draft and it was up to players, in many cases, to approach teams rather than being approached by a team themselves.
After two successful years, it seems appropriate to review the tournament and make changes. One ‘problem’ noticed was the difference in quality between some teams, most notably Oval Invincibles who won the tournament two years in a row with Welsh Fire only winning one game last season. The draft looks to solve this with a three-stage process made up of retentions, the draft itself and then an open market for remaining players to be selected. In the retaining stage, each team can retain three ‘marquee’ players. This means a total of three overseas or England centrally contracted players with a cap of two in each category. Then in the main draft, the teams will select a minimum of four players, Welsh Fire having the first pick. The wildcard overseas will no longer be a part of the tournament and instead, it will return to the inaugural edition where each team is allowed to sign a maximum of three England central contract and three overseas players. The remaining seven players for each team will be selected from the ‘open market’ which means that any unsigned player could move anywhere. One would imagine the open market will be made up of domestic players, some of whom will be semi-professional and not fully contracted to their region.
Professionalism is another factor which comes into this. The women’s regional structure in England and Wales is not yet fully professional and despite huge ECB investment — meaning that there will be almost 100 female professional cricketers in England and Wales — it is not at the same stage as the men’s structure. This makes the introduction of the draft more interesting as arguably the draft assumes a level of professionalism which just does not exist yet.
Just because the men do it doesn’t make it right
For the most part, both players and fans, seem to support the idea of a draft but it does raise the question of should the women’s game always follow the men’s game. The women’s game has the opportunity to develop as a sport without making mistakes that the men’s game has and create its own identity which it has successfully managed. The draft has the potential to develop into similar to what we’ve seen in leagues all over the world and turn into a money-centric draft, entirely ignoring the sport. Expensive players and big drafts is unknown territory but it holds women’s players to a high standard and acknowledges the quality of the product.
The draft is on for 2023 and there’s going to be lots of movement!
I'm not a fan of this ! Some Fans might follow a team (mens or woman's) because of who plays in those teams, suddenly they move. and it all gets jumbled up. Sides will bare little relation to 2022. Yes there is a difference in standards but that's like saying Southampton are not as good as Manchester City so we will give them first pick of City's squad to give them more of a chance !
It should be up to Fire to improve , not be given first dibs on the best players .