History made at Hundred Auction

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You're listening to the TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

Hello, I'm Stephen Shermold, and welcome to the Test Match Special Podcast. At the historic Hundred auction in Piccadilly Circus in London. To come, we'll hear from Sunrisers Leeds men's coach Daniel Vettori, World Cup winner Anya Shrubsole, who's assistant coach at Southern Brave, and legendary Australia player Meg Lanning, who's captaining the Manchester Super Giants. Plus, we'll have analysis from two former Hundred players and now part of our team, Stephen Finn and Alex Hartley.

This is the TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

So the first auction for a major sport in the UK has come to an end. Among the highlights over the past 2 days, 21-year-old James Cole signed by London Spirit for £390,000, all-rounder Danielle Gibson, pace bowler Izzy Wong, and 18-year-old spinner Tilly Cortine Coleman receiving deals in excess of £100,000 in the women's auction. And despite concerns that IPL-owned teams would not bid for Pakistan players, there was a successful bid from Sunrisers Leeds for spinner Abrar Ahmed. So I joined two former Hundred players, Steve and Finn, and leading the discussion was Alex Hartley.

Right then, we're here at Piccadilly Lights. The Hundred auction has finally finished. It's been a long couple of days with the women's auction yesterday, the men's auction today. Before we get into it, what a couple of days.

It's been genuinely good fun, hasn't it? I didn't know what to expect because you do wonder how interesting can it be, 2 days of people sitting around tables raising paddles. But yesterday with the women's auction at first, which felt like a real moment in time actually, both for British sport and for women's sport with some of the sums of money that was being spent on young players. And then today with some of the big deals that went down, firstly with some of the big names knocking around like Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow and Adil Rashid. And then with all that money spent on James Cole's £390,000, it's been genuinely good fun. And now what we've got to see if all of these players can turn up to play cricket in July, still fit and in form.

We've seen auctions before, Finney, in IPL and the SA20, but it's the first time in British history that it's happened here in the UK. Was it a success? Was it fun to watch?

Well, yeah, I think fun to watch, engaging, interesting storylines. I think the fact that young English players fetched the most money was an interesting thing that came out of it as well for people looking to build cores of teams to take them through. So yeah, I think it's been fascinating and some interesting picks along the way.

Well, previously we've had salary caps. This year, obviously there was a cap, but as a whole, as a team. Do you think that makes the I guess the competition bigger and better in a way?

I think what's interesting is one of the things we were told about the investment that came into The Hundred or why it was needed was in order to bring some bigger names into the competition, certainly on the men's side, that maybe The Hundred didn't always compete with some of the leagues with the salaries that are on offer. I'm not sure if that's come through just yet in that certainly looking down the players that have been sold from a men's point of view, I do think that a lot of those players were available anyway and were playing in The Hundred over the past couple of years. And maybe that some of the players that have been playing have just got richer. It might take a little while. Maybe there's some cricketers sitting around the world today looking at some of the sums of money that have been spent thinking, do you know what? I want a piece of that in the years to come. So I'm not sure yet in terms of the players that are available. The women's competition, that was fine already. Already the best women's players in the world are playing. And one of the criticisms of The Hundred is the salary gap. Hasn't been fair. Look, it's still not the same, but it's certainly grown from a women's point of view. I think there's a bit of a watching brief from the men as to which players might get involved in the years to come.

We're going to get into the details of the teams and the players and everything that's happened over the last 2 days. But from an auction point of view, Finney, do you think it's changed English cricket forever?

Absolutely. I think the dynamic of English domestic cricket today completely changed both days, but The women's game is moving at a pace at the moment and has done in the last 5 years, whereas we've got like all these years of men's domestic contracts, professional contracts. And I do think this changes the dynamic of it and for a number of reasons. But one of the main ones being as a 21-year-old now, you can earn astronomical amounts of money for playing short format cricket. I think that carrot is now dangled even harder as a result of what's happened in this auction.

Is that going to turn people off Test match cricket, Steph?

Well, I think it's an interesting point because still you look at someone like Joe Root, who's the first name out of the hat today from a men's point of view, first sale, he went for £240,000. Don't get me wrong, Joe Root is one of the greatest Englishmen to ever pick up a bat, but in terms of the shortest form of the game, I think that price was probably slightly inflated because of what Joe Root does.

So because of the name?

Exactly. And I think certainly in this country, the way to make your name is still in the Test match format. So I think big names will still carry bigger sums because of what they've done in Test cricket. But someone like James Cowles, who hasn't played international cricket for England at all, has actually been making his name on the franchise circuit this winter, goes for £390,000, partly because of those performances, but partly on potential.

But I think the dynamic has changed today. So where Joe Root 15 years ago, when he was a youngster, he had no choice but to play Test match cricket because that is how he made his name. I think auctions like this and the dynamic of this auction, I think that changes your path to making your name and making your career. I think that changed today.

Well, let's talk about James Cowles because my word was I actually had a little wager with Owen Morgan at the start of the day how much he'd go for, and he said he'd go for easily more than £300,000. You know him, you've played at Sussex. What is he like as a cricketer and will he be starstruck with what's just happened today?

I don't think he'll be starstruck. I did play with him at Sussex and he was really young. He was 18, 19 when I played with him at Sussex. So 3 seasons ago. And you knew there was a class player in there. Like, you watch him play and you do the eye test on a player and you watch him, you think, oh, he can play. And you watched him face quick bowling, which, like, when you see a young player play, you then know what's he like against real high-paced bowling. Dealt with that really well and calmly. He can bowl, and that's only developing as he goes through his career. He's an excellent fielder, and he stays calm under pressure. And I think what he did in the SA20 this winter, the South African version of our domestic T20 competition, he excelled. A couple of man of the matches. His team got right to the end stages, and he was a pivotal feature in that. So yeah, I think He might be slightly surprised that he went for so much. I'm not. I thought he'd go up above £300,000 when I was looking at this list today and the rhetoric and the talk. And as soon as 5 teams were bidding on him, you knew it was, you knew he was in for a big payday. But I don't think it will affect him. I think he'll deal with it very well.

I think what's interesting is sometimes these auctions are all about timing and which players happen to be in form at a certain moment and fashionable.

Well, I also think sometimes it's where you come out in the draw as well.

But if you look at someone like Dan Mousley, say, he's a very similar cricketer to James Cole. Spin bowling all-rounder who's had decent success in The Hundred previously. He's played for England Lions, similar career trajectory. He's gone for £40,000 to Trent Rockets. You look at the price difference there and realistically two very, very similar cricketers. And maybe sometimes it just helps if you're fashionable or in form or all those sorts of things. We've seen that happen in the IPL before with guys like I don't know, Chris Morris breaking records and then they disappear as quickly as they arrive. So sometimes it's a weird alchemy, an auction. It's not necessarily just on ability. There's lots of different things that go into it that can drive up a price.

And what teams need, isn't it? I think actually when you're in that first rung of players, you almost don't want to be in the icon level players because people might be a bit guarded with the way that they're bidding. You've got half an eye on what's to come and you've got 14 other slots to fill in your roster when you come out in the first. Whereas if you're in the middle like James Coles was, people have got an idea of what other teams are looking like, what you've managed to pick up to that stage.

There's been so many different tactics to go about this auction though. We saw yesterday in particular Trent Rockets refused to spend any money for such a long period of time and the Southern Brave, they just spent all their money on their starting 11. And I guess here in England, we don't really know what the right way is to go about an auction.

I think Finney's right as well about the way that players come out. Yesterday, Davina Perrin, the first name to be auctioned, went for £50,000.

She should have gone for so much more than that.

When you look at the money that was spent, an absolute bargain. And then we've had the opportunity to speak to some of the coaches downstairs after the auction, and even then they talk about different tactics. You've got some saying, no, we had our targets, we were willing to spend whatever on them. We had other coaches saying, if you save your money until later, that's a terrible tactic. You've just got to get out there. And spend, others saying, well, we can't believe they spent that on that player so early on, that they got too giddy. And so even now when we've had, I don't know, 10 lots of 8 people around a table over 2 days, there's still no agreement on what the best way to go about it is.

There's one player that benefited from being in the marquee players, and that's Dani Gibson yesterday. She went for £190,000. I mean, there are not very many times in women's sport in particular that they're out paid by the men, if that makes sense, or they are outpaying the men. That's a huge moment for women's cricket. I mean, she had a horror season last year, bless her. You know, she'd just come back from injury. She only scored 33 runs in The Hundred last year. But I guess she's been picked, sorry, on the potential that she's got.

Yeah. And I think it's one of those situations where the team has sat down and said, we need an all-rounder. What all-rounders are available? Ideally, we'd like a young English all-rounder that we can build a team around because typically typically T20 teams are built around the best all-rounders. You see the potential there and you look at the growth of the team and the growth of the player and you hope that they can reach their peak and you back them. So I think that's what happened yesterday, that they wanted an all-rounder, they got their all-rounder and Dani Gibson benefited massively and good on her.

Another all-rounder that benefited yesterday, Stephane, was Sophie Devine, £210,000. Beth Mooney was also £210,000. I mean, that is just money I can't even fathom for 3, 4 weeks' work.

Absolutely. And it's interesting, isn't it, how the very top names yesterday in the auction— I mean, there's so many, so many teams bidding on Beth Mooney. We had the Manchester Supergiants with Meg Lanning at their table.

They were desperate to get her.

Matthew Mott as well, the former Australia women's coach, two Aussies there, so keen to get Beth Mooney into their team and eventually they got outbid. I think what'll be interesting in future Hundred auctions, because at the minute, realistically, the depth of talent in women's cricket's not the same as it is in the men's. And so I think teams were much keener to spend big money on the real top players. Eventually that gap will close and you'll see, I think, the money being spread out a lot more. I think also, just to go back on the money spent in the men's game, how keen teams were to spend on English, on domestic players, just because they know the availability is there over a number of years. You sometimes don't know which teams are touring, all those sorts of things.

Same across both really, because you know, there's a World Cup just before, a Women's World Cup just before the auction. You never know. Deepti Sharma, absolute bargain at £29,000. I'll be so surprised if she doesn't pull out because you think she's the highest paid player at the WPL in the history of the game. And then she's one of the cheaper players in The Hundred. She's probably thinking, what's the benefit of me coming over? I hope she comes over, obviously.

Well, you look at it, the way that I would view it as a player is you'd be like, it's a bit of a hammer blow. I've not gone for as much cash. As I wanted to, but you give yourself the opportunity to be in the shop window. And I think that these tournaments are all about shop windows. Look at James Coles has gone to the SA20, probably wasn't on groundbreaking or definitely wouldn't have been on groundbreaking money there, but he's gone, he's performed, his name's in vogue. Next auction comes along, bang, you've hit the jackpot. So yeah, I think there's a longer game to be played, but yeah, there might be a tight hamstring for Ding T. Sharma.

We've seen some surprises throughout this auction. And I think Tilly Cortine-Coleman going for £105,000, she was as shocked as anybody.

She looked shocked in the picture.

She was so surprised. But I think in the women's game in particular, a lot of money was spent on spinners and Lindsay Smith for £100,000, her for £105,000. I mean, she's 18 years old. I mean, that is just ridiculous money. But she played so well last year. She's now on an England training camp and I think The women's game in particular has benefited so much from The Hundred, Stephane.

I think also the way that the money going to English players, just shooting some of these women up, the highest paid sportswomen in the UK. And I don't know, Al, as a spin bowler, has it got you looking around thinking, I could have had my name in there?

It gave me pure anxiety. I would rather go for nothing than go for £100,000 in that auction. I don't know what you're like, Finny, but I couldn't think of anything worse than playing cricket.

Well, yeah, that I wouldn't mind going for 100 grand, but yeah, the playing cricket side of it. But it also signifies like how the women's game, like we've played 5 seasons of The Hundred now, haven't we? So we know how the game is played and spinners in the women's game are the most versatile bowlers. They bowl power play in the middle at the death quite frequently. You'll see spinners bowling those last 5 balls. So for the spinners to go big yesterday to me is not a surprise because of the versatility that they offer their teams. Courtine Coleman is gonna be someone who they will build the franchise around now, hopefully for years to come.

I mean, £15,000 was the highest wage in the Women's Hundred when you played in that first season in 2021, Al. And I think one of the concerns about the sales of these Hundred franchises was so much of the chats was around the men's game and whether or not there would be still focus on the women's game. But a lot of the investors have spoken about, well, actually the value in buying into these franchises comes from the fact that you're buying into a double-headed tournament, men's sport and women's sport together. The Hundred is quite unique from that point of view. We've seen the growth of the WPL in the past couple of years, and now it's the women who sold for big money yesterday who are seeing the benefit from that. I guess all the players now, they've just got to hope that they arrive, they get there in July, they're still fully fit, they're still in form.

Or take out their insurance.

Take out, and they can make good on these, on these big price tags.

Well, let's get into the women's teams before we get into the men's teams. We obviously had a mammoth day yesterday. Is there any team in particular, Stefan, that sticks out for you? I mean, it's so hard.

It is. Southern Brave always seem to recruit well.

They nail it, don't they?

Yeah, and I don't know if that goes back to the— Charlotte Edwards is not involved anymore because she's the England coach, but she always seemed to have such a good pull to Southampton, so they seem to do well.

So their team is Lizelle Lee, Laura Woolfart, Maya Bouchier, Jemima Rodrigues, Jodie Grewcott, Sophie Molineux, and then you've got Izzy Wong, Sarah Glenn, Lauren Bell. I mean, they're star players.

Yeah. And again, you look at it, young English players to build the franchise around. Yeah, they look good and they've got history of always being, apart from that one year where they had a shocker and finished bottom, they've always been there or thereabouts and they've carried a few of those players through as well, which will help them.

There's one team that sticks out for me. And it's Manchester City Giants, of course.

I knew you were going to say that.

I know, and I would love to hate them, you know, because I played for them all those years ago and they got rid of me, but I think they've nailed it. I really do, in both actually, the men's and the women's. But when you look at the fact you've got Tom Moody and Matthew Mott with Meg Lanning, you've got Smitty Mandhana, Sophie Eccleston, Grace Scrivens, Risha Ghosh, Maddie Villiers, Ballinger. I mean, I don't really see a weakness with their 11.

I thought they'd done really well with their pre-signings, actually, with Lanning Mandana and Ecclestone. Well, it's that basis. I mean, you can sign who you want at the auction after that, can't you? You've got those 3 players in your team. But no, they did well. We spoke that they were really, they really wanted Beth Mooney. I mean, if they'd landed her as well, I mean, what a batting lineup that would have been. But yeah, to me, Southern Brave, Manchester Super Giants, they look like they did really well from the women's side of things.

Men's side of things, let's get into it because today has been a lot longer than yesterday. Things were a lot slower today, but that's because teams sort of held their cards close to their chest for a long time.

It was interesting, apart from Welsh Fire who came out all guns blazing first thing this morning when they signed Joe Root for £240,000 and followed that up with Jordan Cox at £300,000. So they had batting of Phil Salt and Rachin Ravindra who'd already signed, adding Cox and Root.

Well, I spoke to Phil Salt at the end of the day and he said, well, then we just sat quietly for a couple of hours and sort of rethought.

Buyer's remorse. To me, again, the interesting thing was MyLondon. So formerly Oval Invincibles, 3 time winners who'd done really good business in their pre-signings with the likes of Rashid Khan, Nicholas Poran, Will Jacks, and Sam Curran. So 4 really strong players. And it was interesting to me just how determined they were to get other players that had already been linked to the franchise before. The bidding for Tom Curran, he ended up at £260,000.

Wow. Didn't let go of the paddle.

Honestly, I don't think there was any amount of money that MI London wouldn't have paid for Tom Curran.

He said at the end of the day, he thought he'd got him cheaper than they were expecting. So they were expecting to spend more money on him.

Disappointing news if you're Tom Curran hearing that.

Keep going and bid against yourselves.

But yeah, it was interesting that that franchise wanted to keep the nucleus of the team that previously bought them so much success.

Well, that's where they got their success, isn't it? Absolutely.

And again, going back to the Manchester Supergiants, the batting that they've managed to secure They had Jos Buttler and Heinrich Claassen beforehand. They've got Aidan Markram, Tim Seifer. I mean, good luck if you're bowling at Old Trafford. I'm not too sure about their pace bowling. Their spin bowling looks good.

Their fringe batters are pretty good as well. Holden, Mieje, guys that they've got, bargain basement sort of stuff towards the end there.

Yeah.

To supplement those main players is good business as well.

When you look at today, like when you're seeing everything that's unfolding, What are your main takeaways of the day? I mean, we've seen so many young players go.

Yes, I think it's a landmark day. It is in both today for the men's and yesterday for the women's. They're both landmark days for British sport, not just cricket, but British sport for the way that it's all transpired. And I think it's been fascinating to see the dynamics within the room about people's approaches. You can clearly tell The people who are experienced in auctions, they probably looked a bit calmer on the tables than the people who weren't, who were in here sort of thinking on their feet. And I think it's only going to be more dramatic as the years go on.

I've got a favourite moment of the day. Both Roos got sold, but little Roo, James?

Tom.

Tom Roo, we tried to get him for an interview with The Hundred. He found out he'd been sold while he was in class at school. That's how young he is.

I think one other thing as well that we could have been talking about right now is whether or not Pakistan players had been sold.

That was my next point.

Yeah, could have been sold to teams that were affiliated to IPL franchises. And early on in the day, we had a couple of players that came up for auction, Haris Ralph and Shadab Khan. They didn't receive any bids at all. I think they probably set their reserve prices a little bit too high, £100,000. But then Usman Tariq, who had the spin bowler who had such a good World Cup, he received bids from Birmingham Phoenix and Trent Rockets, ultimately going to the Phoenix. And then the moment of Abrar Ahmed coming up for sale and the Sunrisers Leeds who were bidding for him. Now they're obviously in the Sunrisers family from the IPL. Daniel Vettori later on saying, look, we missed out on Adil Rashid. And they did. They went hard for him earlier on in the day and they went to a mystery spinner.

It's been a huge talking point, that, hasn't it? Whether or not Pakistan players will get picked up or not. And we've had a couple that have been. Do you think that ends the conversation or do you think it's just the start of of something a little bit bigger?

Well, it's definitely the start, isn't it? I mean, it's been done, so, but the conversation doesn't stop there. It's like anything, you don't, as soon as it's happened once, you don't just say, well, we've cracked that, it's done. This is a starting point to move on and to build those blocks and make sure that in future even more players are signed.

I mean, there was 4 franchises in the room today that were linked to IPL teams. Only one bid on a Pakistan player. Now, let's not forget, there are loads of sporting reasons why any player would not be bid in an auction. Pakistan have a Test series around about the same time as the Hundred. If we're being honest, Pakistan haven't been that strong recently. Occasionally, Pakistan players haven't been able to fulfill their commitments because they haven't received no objection certificates. It'll be interesting to see the fallout from this. What is the reaction in India? What is the reaction from Sunrisers Hyderabad to their their family buying a Pakistan player. And I think this will come up again the next time there's a selection process to see which teams make bids for those Pakistan players. It's a step in the right direction.

So just to sum up the whole 2 days, there's been more money ever spent on men's and women's cricket here at The Hundred, a massive auction. What excites you most about 2026, Finney?

I think it's a fresh start. Whatever has happened in the tournament that now up until this point, The Hundred is wiped clean. New owners, new investment, a new shop window for both the men's and the women's. That brings pressure because of the sums of money that we're talking about, but it also brings a level of excitement, I think, to the tournament that we've not seen previously. So it's going to be a good year.

Stefan, from a journo point of view, you must have a little nugget or two.

I think it's just going to be interesting because so many different ideas have been bought into The Hundred. Lots of different investors and not just investors that were already involved in cricket, but lots of different investors from tech and football and all those sorts of things. Where do they want to take this competition? And what does that mean, good and bad? We know that The Hundred can be divisive. We know that there's certain people within cricket who think that it's given— there's too much damage being done to the county game for The Hundred, whether that being given away the month of August or money or all those sorts of things. So in one way, I'm interested to see where the game is taken, but also I think it's going to take a long time to know if everything that is coming out of this is going to be positive. And my last thought is I picked a bad career as a journalist. My dodgy wicket keeping and my inability to hit the ball off the square has not got me anywhere. I'd have raised nothing in the Hundred Lottery.

You haven't got the temperament for it, unfortunately.

If some butts, me and Finney could have played in a different era, but we didn't.

We didn't. We're sat here instead. What a time to be alive.

Right, I'm going to put you both on the spot. Stefan, I'm going to go with you. Who's winning both competitions?

So in the men's, I did say that I like the look of my London and Manchester Super Giants. But the winners are going to be London Spirit, the Andy Flower factor. He's done so well around the world and in the women's game, I don't think I can look past Manchester Super Giants. I think they've done really well with their recruitment before the auction. They look strong to me.

Finny?

Well, I was going to say London Spirit as well.

That's because you're still scared of Andy Flower, isn't it?

Well, partly, yeah. Yeah. Terrifying seeing him here. It's like seeing a ghost. No, look, it's— I think London Spirit have shaped up well. I think they've recruited well. I think they've got good right and left-handers throughout the order and with the ball in hand, I think is an important element of building a T20 team. So I think that they're looking good to me and I think the Southern Brave will win the women's competition.

Okay. For me, I'm going Manchester are doing the double. They're winning the men's and they're winning the women's. And for reasons? You will find out in the summer.

The TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

So as you heard there, there were concerns before the men's auction that IPL-linked franchises in The Hundred would avoid bidding for or buying players from Pakistan, mirroring a ban that is in place in the Indian Premier League. But those concerns were allayed when Sunrisers Leeds bid for the Pakistan spinner Abrar Ahmed, who will now be playing in the Hundred at Headingley. I spoke to the Sunrisers head coach Daniel Vettori, a spinner himself.

Adil Rashid was a real priority for us, and as soon as we missed out on him, we had to jump into that overseas market. And there were a number of bowlers available to us who we thought could fill that role, but I think Abrar over the last little while has been a proven wicket-taker in all all phases of the game. I think he's unique in the amount of variations he has, and a lot of, particularly domestic English players, will never have seen him before. So we hope that first sight factor will really go for us and put a lot of pressure on teams, plus the fact that Bond Headingley is incredibly difficult. So we wanted someone with a bit of mystery about them.

Before the auction, there was some conversation about whether or not the franchises linked to IPL teams would sign players from Pakistan. Were you aware of that?

Well, I think you couldn't help but be aware of it, but we went into the auction with, with every player available. And like I said before, if we've got Adil Rashid, then we wouldn't have gone down this road. But as soon as that option was required, there were a number of very good spin bowlers from international teams that were, that were an option for us. And Albrecht was probably— it was obviously the priority, but there were other guys there as well.

Were there any conversations amongst your management hierarchy about players that you, you could or couldn't sign?

No, there wasn't.

And are you aware, I don't know, it might be— it's important that an IPL franchise assigned a Pakistan player.

I mean, it is from a certain country, but we're looking at players, we're looking at a person who can contribute and who has obviously a high skill level, high track record, and can be hopefully part of a winning franchise. And that, that's our priority.

That was the Sunrisers Sunrisers Leeds head coach Daniel Vettori. And also linked to the Abraha Ahmed move to Headingly, Test match special commentator Atif Nawaz has been giving his reaction to the BBC Sports editor Dan Rowan.

Abraha Ahmed being signed by an IPL-owned team, the Sunrisers Leeds, for a substantial fee as well, £190,000.

That's—

I think that's good news for The Hundred. I think that's very positive for world cricket as well. That any sort of, you know, geopolitical issues that may exist in parts of the world don't translate over to English domestic cricket. That's really wonderful to hear. We've already seen instances of Pakistani and Indian players playing together in the County Championship, and, you know, it's almost a novelty to see that happen nowadays. But, you know, I think this is a very important moment for English cricket. There will still be cynics who will say, well, this is— and I don't mean to denigrate anybody's opinion by saying it's cynical, but it is somewhat, because there's been a Pakistani player picked, and they'll say Well, you know, that's just one player and what have you. The ownership groups could always push back with the fact that Pakistan is playing a 2-test series against the West Indies. The selection policies can be quite erratic as well. We've seen that erratic is the kindest way to put it, but they can sort of pick unusual players at any given time, which creates a little bit of uncertainty about picking Pakistani players. But, you know, we've seen Usman Tariq signed up. He was somebody who was much hyped in the T20 World Cup recently, performed brilliantly. So it would be wonderful to see him over here. As well. And then just to see the commitment with which the Sunrisers leads, you know, they kept bidding and bidding and there was, there was sort of immediate bid. It was never felt like a token bid. It felt like they were very committed to bringing this player on board. I think that's a very positive development. This is a big moment. It's a really important, significant moment as well because, you know, perhaps this could translate into more Pakistani players being picked. And, and for the, for the ECB, they can now start denying any charges of, of isolation and things like that. There are still many other players in the the auction. It was, you know, it was sort of disappointing, I'll say, is the word I'll use for Fatima Sana and Sadia Iqbal, the two female players in the auction who weren't picked yesterday. I mean, there's a number of credible reasons for that. Just maybe at the very top of them is that they don't have an enormous amount of experience of playing in English conditions, the pair of them, despite their sort of world rankings and other credentials. For Pakistan, again, there was that two-test series that could easily have given teams an out. But despite that sort of credible reasoning for like, well, we can't pick them because XYZ. There would have always been a lingering asterisk, like, did they not pick them because they're from Pakistan and because there's this movement? So that would have lingered, no doubt. And I think, you know, for someone like me at least, the picking of Abraha Ahmed puts that very much to rest for the time being.

That was a Test match special commentator Atif Nawaz. Yesterday it was the women's auction and some criticism on that side of the Hundred is that only one team in the tournament has a female head coach. That's Lisa Kightley at MyLondon. A 2017 World Cup-winning bowler with England, Anya Shrubsole, she is an assistant coach at Southern Brave, and I spoke to her about how the women's game had changed from when she began playing to where it is now.

I made my England debut at Shenley, probably with about 20 people there, and probably 15 of them were my family. So to then be here, we'd have been lottery funded then. To call us semi-professional probably would have been a stretch. To obviously be here at this sort of venue, central London, with the players going for kind of the sums of money. I mean, if you want an indication of how far the women's game's grown, there you go.

And what about, I don't know, the way that The Hundred's grown as well? Because, you know, you played at the start of the competition when the highest salary was, was £15,000. So firstly, making that comparison, but also, I don't know, at the time, did it feel like something that could, that could grow into what we're seeing today?

I definitely think so. I think that, that kind of first competition, and maybe it got a bit of a kind of COVID boost, people were allowed out, and actually, especially for the women, it was almost— there weren't many positives of COVID but it wasn't initially planned to be kind of in the format that it now is. So I think that was kind of a bit of a happy accident. And I think for both the men and the women, but particularly the women, it's just kind of kept growing and growing and growing and is such an amazing competition. I didn't miss a lot when I retired. I did miss the Hundred a little bit, admittedly only for about a game, but it's a great competition to play in and you see this here today and see where it's come and that's really incredible.

It's felt like the women's competition has almost been, I don't know, the heartbeat of the Hundred. And we're seeing that today. I mean, the women are the first tournament to be involved in the auction, first major auction in British sport. I don't know, like I said, the Women's Hundred is the heartbeat of the competition over these first 5 or 6 years.

It definitely feels like it. I definitely feel like the competition has done more for women's cricket, definitely in this country, possibly in the world, than it probably has for the men's. And I, and like you say, I think that's incredible. And I think, and hopefully that just continues to, to, continues to grow.

So you've been down there on the table with Southern Brave and you've been spending big money on young English players. So let's take them one at a time. Izzy Wong firstly, as a fast bowler close to your heart, why did you want to spend almost £200,000 on Izzy Wong?

I think as part of a bigger picture, we obviously retained 3 batters, 3 out-and-out batters, so it's pretty obvious that we needed some bowling. Izzy has got so much upside. She whacks it down the order, so that's really helpful, and she's someone who can really kind of get a team going. And I think she's young, she's exciting, she's had a difficult time, and but I think we saw last year that she'd really started to come through that. So we're excited for this competition, but you obviously think next year, the year after, then retentions and all of that sort of stuff, having good English talent is really important.

You mentioned the tough time that Izzy's had over the past year or so. She really burst onto the scene as an international cricketer. You say that, you know, you're looking at the way that she's improved, and it's not just a signing for this year but for many years to come. When you're making those signings, are you making those sort of long-term bets and maybe not always taking into account what's happened in the most recent past, but also, you know, what could go right in the future?

Yeah, I think there's all kinds of things that come into it. It's a bit of a kind of 3-year cycle. So you're trying to build a team where that you hope will take you most of the way through the next 3 years. You always know if you get the best England players and they're available, they'll play. It's not, not like overseas who, who may drop out a little bit more. But Izzy has got such a high ceiling. She's got so much going for her as a cricketer, as a person. And I think she complements our team really well.

There'll be some people who aren't aware of Tilly Courtney-Coleman, 18-year-old spin bowler who is now just over £100,000 richer. Tell us about her.

She's a really exciting cricketer. I think if anyone who watched The Hundred last year saw how she performed, how she burst onto the scene, she is just going to keep getting better and better and better. I see her playing for England for a number of years. She's obviously obviously got a pretty sizable obstacle in, in Sophie Ecclestone potentially in her way. But I think what England have shown lately with Sophie and Lindsay playing is they're prepared to play two left-arm spinners together. Um, she's just a quality cricketer. She's another really important person to have. Can bowl across phases, left-arm spin— what's not to love?

Just tell us what it's like being on that table when you've got a certain amount of money to spend and a squad to assemble. Now, there'll be a lot of people listening to this who might have tried to play fantasy sports before, fantasy cricket, fantasy football. You've got a budget, you're trying to build a squad, you don't know what you're going to do. You always want a bit more money. What's it like down there when, I don't know, you see a player, you want to buy her, the money keeps going up and up. You try and think, how am I going to build an entire squad? I've only got this much money. What's it like?

All of the teams will have done a huge amount of planning. You'll have come up with different scenarios. If we get this player, then what's it look like? If we miss out on this, what's it look like? How far can we push certain things? And then part of you has just got to read the room about what play, what sort of category of players going for a kind of premium, which is almost always all-rounders. They know they're the ones who, who kind of go. And, and then there's always a couple of people who you've budgeted a lot more money for and go for a lot cheaper. So you've then just got to think, actually, we budgeted a bit more there. We've saved some money. What's our next most important role? So it's kind of constantly analysts working overtime updating the spreadsheet. I just sit there and give my opinion every now and then and then carry on watching.

And just finally, a minute ago you said there wasn't many times, well, there weren't many times when you, when you missed playing. Is today one of them? When you see those sums of money going up on the screen next to, next to some of those players, you think, I wouldn't mind a bit of that?

Well, I wouldn't mind the money, but I don't want to play, so unfortunately the two don't go hand in hand. Um, every time I play the very occasional game of cricket now, and every time I do it, I think, what on earth am I doing? So, um, I think it's just one of those things. Like, I'm a real believer, like, you can't be bitter about it. People in 10, 15 years' time will be going for more money than these, these girls are now. That's just the way that it is. I'm thrilled that I had the career that I had. I was involved in a really important time for women's cricket, going from amateur to professional. If I was born 15 years later, I might have been a bit better off, but I'm very happy with my life.

That was the former England bowler and World Cup winner Anya Shrubsole. One of Shrubsole's old opponents was the former Australia captain Meg Lanning, who'll be playing for the Manchester Super Giants in The Hundred this year. She was on the Super Giants auction table and she told me how she found the experience and how she's looking forward to her summer in Manchester.

Yeah, it's been fun, um, obviously seeing things from a slightly different perspective, being behind the scenes, seeing the strategy. And all the different plans that you need to come up with heading into an auction. So I've really enjoyed the experience working alongside Tom Moody and Matthew Mott as well. Um, yeah, I've learned a lot, so it's been a good day.

Obviously you've had loads of experience captaining teams, international cricket, domestic cricket, all over the world, but is that slightly different for you, that sort of behind-the-scenes strategy? Is that something new for you?

Yeah, it is. I like— it's my first auction experience sort of being involved in in how to build the list. Yeah, especially sort of doing it from scratch, you get to sort of, you know, make it up how you want to, how you want to do it. So I think having Tom Moody there with that auction experience has been really key for us. And then it was just about, yeah, the sort of the skill sets that we wanted, the key players who we wanted to get in as early as we could, and then you sort of fill the gaps from there.

Talking about the players that you want to get in, there was one player that you really wanted that you didn't get in, Beth Mooney. How badly did you want to get the signature of your Aussie mate there?

Yeah, we really wanted Moons to be with us. You know, she's a world-class player who's shown time and time again that she can win games for your team. So unfortunately we couldn't get her. Trenton Rockets, yeah, sort of pipped us at the end there. But yeah, certainly would have loved to have her, but I feel like we were able to sort of go to our next plan, I guess, and sort of move on from there.

You say this is your first auction experience. Obviously you've played all around the world, WPL, Big Bash back at home, and you've got experience in the Hundred as well. But what about this as an event for women's cricket and where it might take the game? What's your experience been? What can you see this doing for the game?

Yeah, I think, I think it's great. I think it's, it's a new experience in the women's game, especially for the local players over here in the UK. But, um, you know, I think it exposes you to to different things. And, you know, there's a lot of movement between the teams as well, which is probably something that's a bit new. But I think from my experience playing in different teams, meeting new people, you learn a lot of things as well. So I think it's sort of, yeah, the next logical step. And I think it's been an exciting day so far, and, and the tournament will roll around pretty quickly as well.

How's your UK summer looking then? You're going to be playing for Lancashire, playing for the Super Giants, so plenty of time spent in Manchester.

Yes, it's actually a city I've not spent a lot of time in, but before. So excited about the opportunity to play in the Vitality Blast. I haven't done that previously, so a new experience for me. So looking forward to playing with Lancs and then obviously linking up with Manchester after that. So busy summer coming up, but it'll be nice to escape the Melbourne winter and hopefully the sun comes out a fair bit.

Okay, so you're saying you're going to escape the Melbourne winter. I've got to tell you, it does rain a little bit in Manchester.

I have heard that. Everyone I've spoken to has sort of pointed out the weather weather, so hopefully it's more sun than rain, but we'll see how it plays out.

What's your knowledge of Manchester like?

Not much at all. I think I spent half a day in Manchester previously, but yeah, I know a few people who spent a bit of time there and they say it's not too bad. There's good coffee out here, so that's an important part for me, but I'll learn a bit throughout the summer, I think.

Okay, Manchester City or Manchester United?

Neither.

What's your knowledge of Oasis songs like?

Minimal, minimal, yeah.

Do you feel like there's going to be an education to be had across the summer?

I think so, yeah. I mean, I've got pretty much 3 months there, so I think by the end of it I might have a little bit more knowledge. And so if you ask me next year, I'll be able to give you a bit more.

I'll tell you what we'll do, right? We'll get Alex Hartley, our BBC colleague, to show you around Manchester. Kate Cross as well, be on the No Balls podcast. You'll be like a local by the end of it.

Perfect. I know Kate and Alex a little bit, so I look forward Looking forward to that. I hope they can teach me a thing or two about the stuff that goes on there and what's good and what's bad. So we'll see how we go.

By the end of the summer, you'll be in a bucket hat, you'll be singing along to Oasis, you'll be like a proper Mancunian. Thanks very much for your time.

No worries, thanks.

That was the former Australia captain Meg Lanning. So 2 days of the historic Hundred auction have come to an end. Now we wait until July when these teams will finally get on the field. Field when the competition begins. You'll be able to follow The Hundred across the BBC with every game live on BBC Sounds, plus 8 doubleheaders live on BBC TV, including the opening games and the finals. Keep subscribed to BBC Sounds for all of our content, including commentary on the County Championship starting next month, and podcasts including No Balls with Alex Hartley and Kate Cross, plus Tail Enders, who have reaction from Izzy Wong in their latest episode. That's all from us in Piccadilly. We'll speak to you next time.

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