The Hundred goes to auction for the first time as IPL money reshapes English cricket
English cricket's most divisive competition took another step toward its IPL-influenced future on March 12 when The Hundred held a player auction at Piccadilly Lights in central London. For the first time, all eight men's teams bid for players in an open marketplace rather than picking them through a draft.
Three teams, three new names
Three of those teams arrived with new identities. The Oval Invincibles are now MI London, bankrolled by Reliance Industries and sharing branding with the Mumbai Indians. Manchester Originals have become Manchester Super Giants, owned by the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group behind Lucknow Super Giants. And Northern Superchargers are now Sunrisers Leeds, connected to the Sun Group that runs Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Birmingham Phoenix, London Spirit, Southern Brave, Trent Rockets and Welsh Fire all kept their existing names.
Cox tops the bidding
Each team started the auction with a purse of £1,100,000 after making up to four pre-auction signings. The overall salary cap for men's teams has risen 45% to £2.05 million per squad. Teams can carry between 16 and 18 players, with the overseas quota bumped from three to four.
Jordan Cox emerged as the most expensive player of the men's auction, going to Welsh Fire for £300,000. Tom Curran attracted strong bidding before landing at MI London for £260,000, while Joe Root joined Cox at Welsh Fire for £240,000. England quick Gus Atkinson went to Manchester Super Giants at £70,000, a relative bargain given his form over the past 12 months.
Some notable players went unsold in the early rounds. Afghanistan's Azmatullah Omarzai and Pakistan's Shadab Khan found no takers initially.
Marquee pre-auction retentions
The biggest names were locked in before the auction began. Jos Buttler and Heinrich Klaasen stayed at Manchester Super Giants, Sam Curran and Rashid Khan at MI London, Harry Brook at Sunrisers Leeds, and Jofra Archer at Southern Brave. Each team was allowed up to four pre-auction signings or retentions, with at least one being a player held over from the 2025 squad.
Women's auction sets new records
The women's auction wrapped up on March 11, with Beth Mooney and Sophie Devine setting the record at £210,000 each. The women's salary pot doubled to £880,000 per team. Danielle Gibson became the most expensive English player at £190,000, going to Sunrisers Leeds.
Multi-year contracts are also new for 2026, another structural change that brings The Hundred closer to franchise cricket models seen in India, Australia and the Caribbean. Whether that is progress or an erosion of English cricket's identity depends on who you ask. But the money is heading in one direction, and on March 12, it got louder.
