The Hundred 2026: Women's auction live updates

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Trent Rockets almost gets Tammy Beaumont with a bid of £60,000 but Birmingham Phoenix swoop in late with a £70,000 bid to secure her signature.

Danielle Gibson will be the last player to go under the hammer in this first round of auctions.

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Davina Perrin is the first marquee player to be up for grabs.

From a base price of £37.5k, she is sold for £50k to Birmingham Phoenix.

The England batter returns to Birmingham after a couple of seasons with the Northern Superchargers.

England wicketkeeper-batter Amy Jones is up next.

How does the auction work?

The Hundred auction is split into three sections: hero players, ranked players and nominated players.

Hero players are those most selected by teams ahead of the auction as potential signings, with the top 50 grouped into sets based on their role in the team.

Teams then have the chance to bid on those players in the auction with the highest bidder winning that player.

Following the conclusion of the hero player auction, teams will get to nominate 25 players each and the most popular from those nominations will be classed as ranked players.

These can consist of any players from the auction longlist, including hero players who were not signed in the first round.

The final round, known as nominated players, starts with a random draw to determine the order in which teams get to select unsigned players.

After a team has selected an unsigned player, they will be auctioned as per the earlier rounds. But if no other team bids for them, they will sign for the team they were initially selected by.

The auction will conclude when all eight teams have finalised their squads.

What's changed in The Hundred?

For the uninitiated, The Hundred was introduced in 2021 with a unique format - it's 100 balls per innings and it's proven to be fast and frantic over the past five seasons.

So, why is this year different? Overseas investment.

2026 is a landmark year for the competition after the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) opened the doors to private investors, and the owners of several Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises swooped in, bringing in hundreds of millions of pounds in investment and a whole lot of rebranding.

Three sides have even unveiling new names for 2026.

Manchester Originals have become the Manchester Super Giants after being brought by the owners of IPL franchise Lucknow Super Giants and their crest now features the head of an elephant, not an animal typically associated with a city in north-west England.

Oval Invincibles are now MI London after Reliance Industries, owners of Mumbai Indians, brought a 49% stake.

Northern Superchargers have been renamed Sunrisers Leeds after investment from owners of Sunrisers Hyderabad.

However, Southern Brave, who are controlled by the owners of Delhi Capitals, have chosen not to change their name.

So what’s happening today?

We start with the women's team auction today that will run from 10:00 to 17:00 GMT with 178 players going under the hammer for a slice of an £880,000 team salary pot.

Expect massive bids for superstars like Beth Mooney, Sophie Devine, Tammy Beaumont, Amy Jones, Deepti Sharma and Deandra Dottin.

And then tomorrow, we go again for the men's auction with 240 players, including Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Adil Rashid, Aiden Markram, David Miller and Sunil Narine, up for grabs.

So grab a coffee and settle in, and let's see how it all unfolds.

Welcome to a new era of The Hundred!

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of what could be a historic day in English cricket!

And if you’re wondering what is going on today, don’t worry, we've got you covered.

Today marks the first-ever player auction for The Hundred, happening live from London from 10:00 GMT. It starts with the women's players today before the men take centre stage for their auction tomorrow.

We could witness full Indian Premier League-style bidding wars for the first time in The Hundred after the first five years of the tournament used a 'draft' system to build the squads.

With a massive influx of private investment recently, the stakes have never been higher. So let's get going!

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