The Hundred 2021 Men News

One of the major questions that hover around the England men's test team is- What or who after Anderson?

While she admitted to the BBC that she wanted to continue with her on-field career, she also recognised she would be "stupid to turn down" the chance to enhance her coaching skills with another high-profile appointment as well.

England limited-overs skipper Eoin Morgan said that Test cricket has always been the priority for England and that people blaming the newest and most successful domestic format in the country- The Hundred are not making the correct analysis. "Test match cricket has always been the priority: it's the format for our elite players. Obviously, times at the moment have been tough down in Australia during the Ashes [but] they always are: we've lost the last two series 5-0 [sic] and it's no surprise that Australia are very, very good at home,” Morgan said on talkSPORT's Following On podcast. "Given the preparation, the guys have had where since they've arrived in Australia, until the first Test match, it has hammered it down with rain… it's laughable to point the finger at the Hundred. The Hundred is an unbelievable success. Our formats in county cricket and the Hundred, in the way they're structured, it's exactly the same as Australia's,” added the man who was given the Commander of the Order of the British Empire honours on the new year’s day of 2022 by the British Empire. Morgan, who is currently in Barbados to play the five-match T20I series against West Indies, said that people need to assess the loss purely on the merit of preparation and the game that the team has played instead of searching for the scapegoat in The Hundred. "People need something to blame so they'll point at probably the furthest point to reality because nobody wants to say: 'you know what, we haven't had the prep we would have liked, we probably haven't played as we'd have liked, and we've lost'. That happens in all formats, but I stress: Test match cricket has always been the priority,” he said. The Hundred’s first season was played in July 2021 and both the men’s and the women’s tournament was received well by the audiences with the women’s tournament seeing record attendance as the men’s and women’s games were played at the same venue on the same day. Morgan led London Spirit, one of the eight city-based sides in the tournament.

Kevin Pietersen has called for the franchise red-ball competition modelled on 'The Hundred'. Pietersen opined that the franchise competition for red-ball cricket will bring back the interests of the players into the format.

Leading players of the short forms of the game from England and across the world are in for a hefty increase in salary from The Hundred as there has been a significant increase in the purse of franchises by as much as 20 per cent from the next edition. The sides taking part in the first edition of the tournament scheduled to start in the year 2020 were supposed to have an overall purse of one million pounds but as it was delayed to start this year, they suffered a massive cut in their spending capacity and could be given mandates to spend only 800,000 pounds. However, as per an ESPNcricinfo report, that massive cut has been withdrawn and as a result, men players, who were set to earn in the range of 80,000 pounds to 1,25,000 pounds with captains of sides being eligible for a bonus of 10,000 pounds, will get their payment as it was stated before the launch of the event. Some notable players who are set to earn as much as 1,35,000 pounds are England white-ball captain Eoin Morgan, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali and the organisers of the tournament such as the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) would hope that increase purse for sides and subsequent hike in payment of players would find the tournament financially lucrative for international stars as well.

Having led Southern Brave to a title win in the inaugural season of The Hundred, their chief coach and former Sri Lanka skipper Mahela Jayawardene were asked whether he would consider coaching national teams, now that he has three IPL titles with Mumbai Indians as a coach and one with Brave. Responding to it, the Sri Lankan categorically denied any such plans as of now because he wants to spend time with his family and doesn’t want to live out of a suitcase or on the road all the time. "Having done 18 years of international cricket as a player I don't want to live out of a suitcase for 12 months of the year,” said the man with more than 25,000 international runs in his kitty. Jayawardene however confirmed that his current structure of helping franchise teams as consultants would remain in place. "I'm happy to help out as a consultant here and there (with Sri Lanka) but not on a full-time basis because I would not enjoy that personally,” he said. "This is a good challenge for me and it's early days. I don't do too many tournaments so that I have my personal time to spend back home with the family,” he further added. Having spent a lot of time with Southern brave, Jayawardene feels that Tymal deserves a place in the England squad for the T20 World Cup for the hard work he has done and the kind of talent he possesses. Mills was instrumental in Brave's Eliminator win against Trent rickets and Final victory against Birmingham Phoenix. "I'd be disappointed if he's not on that plane for the World Cup. Throughout the competition, he's been fantastic. Tymal Mills is always going to be an asset. In the shorter format of the game, he knows his skills and it's a hard skill that he's executing,” said Jayawardene about the man who did not consider a single boundary in the knockout stage of the tournament and picked four wickets as well in two matches. With the remainder of the IPL to be played in September-October, the 44-year-old Sri Lankan would have his task cut out as he would be preparing to lead Mumbai Indians to title hattrick with the team having won the titles in 2019 and 2020 under his guidance.