The Hundred: How Cricket's Newest Format Works
A complete guide to The Hundred — the ECB's 100-ball per team format launched in England in 2021 — how the rules differ from T20 (balls per over vary from 5 to 10, change of ends every 10 balls, bowling allocation of 10 or 20 balls per bowler), the franchises and their home grounds, how powerplay and fielding restrictions work, and why the format was designed to attract new audiences.
The Core Rules
The Hundred is a 100-ball per innings format: each team bats for exactly 100 balls (roughly equivalent to 16-17 overs of 6 balls). The key structural difference from T20 is that bowlers can bowl either a 5-ball set or a 10-ball set, and ends change automatically every 10 balls rather than after every 6-ball over. This means the over structure is irrelevant — the scoreboard shows balls remaining rather than overs remaining, and bowlers can be changed mid-way through a 'set.' The bowling allocation gives each bowler a maximum of 20 balls across the entire innings (approximately equivalent to 3.5 overs in T20), which means a 4-bowler lineup can share the work equally across 100 balls.
Fielding restrictions: The Hundred uses a powerplay of 25 balls (the first 25 of each innings), during which only 2 fielders may be outside the 30-yard circle — slightly longer than the 24-ball powerplay T20 would have if scaled proportionally. After the powerplay, a maximum of 5 fielders may be placed outside the circle for the remaining 75 balls. Run-outs, wides, no-balls, and extras follow standard cricket conventions. A 'Super Over' (or 'Super 5' — 5 balls per side) resolves tied matches.
The Franchises and Teams
The Hundred uses 8 city-based franchises rather than county names: London Spirit (Lord's), Oval Invincibles (The Oval), Trent Rockets (Nottingham), Birmingham Phoenix, Manchester Originals (Old Trafford), Southern Brave (Southampton), Welsh Fire (Cardiff), and Northern Superchargers (Headingley, Leeds). Each franchise has a men's and women's team, with the women's competition running alongside the men's in a model the ECB cited as deliberate double-header scheduling to build women's cricket audiences. Players are allocated via a draft, with marquee international players selected before the main draft.
Design Philosophy and Reception
The Hundred was explicitly designed to attract audiences unfamiliar with cricket: the 100-ball structure makes the innings progress easier to track (a simple countdown rather than overs), the city-based franchises were intended to build new local fan bases separate from established county cricket loyalties, and the scheduling (primarily prime-time television) was oriented toward casual viewers. The format was controversial among cricket traditionalists — The Hundred reduces 6 standard T20 overs to 'sets' and introduces an unfamiliar counting system — but its TV audience figures in England significantly exceeded ECB expectations in the first two seasons. Several other cricket boards have expressed interest in adapting the format.
Frequently asked questions
How are points calculated in The Hundred group stage?
The Hundred group stage uses the same points system as most limited-overs competitions: 2 points for a win, 1 point for a no-result match (abandoned due to weather), and 0 points for a loss. Teams play 8 matches in the group stage (playing each other team once, at home or away), with the top 3 teams advancing to the knockout stage — 1st place goes directly to the final, 2nd and 3rd place meet in an eliminator (the winner of the eliminator meets the 1st-place team in the final). The DLS method handles matches interrupted by weather that still produce a result with sufficient balls bowled.
Can any player bowl in The Hundred regardless of their normal bowling type?
Yes — The Hundred follows standard cricket bowling rules: any player named in the starting 11 can bowl (subject to the captain's discretion), with the 20-ball maximum per bowler applying to each bowler regardless of type (pace, spin, medium). In practice, teams select 5-6 specialist bowlers who share the 100 balls across the innings, with the remaining 5-6 batting specialists who may bowl supplementary balls in specific situations. The format's 20-ball allocation has made pace bowling depth less critical than in some other formats — a team with 3 high-quality pace options can distribute the 100 balls without needing a full 5-bowler attack.
Is The Hundred recognised by the ICC as an official format?
The Hundred is an ECB domestic competition, not an ICC-recognised format. It is not part of the official ICC cricket structure (which recognises Tests, ODIs, T20Is, and their domestic equivalents). Players representing their national teams in international cricket are recalled from Hundred contracts during international windows, with franchise clubs compensated for missing players. The format has no ICC equivalent at international level — no ICC-sanctioned 100-ball international series exists. This is consistent with the format's domestic commercial orientation rather than its being a step toward ICC adoption.