LONDON: Leg-spinner Sandeep Lamichhane (£100,000) was picked by Oval Invincibles. The player draft event for the inaugural The Hundred took place in England on Sunday evening. As many as 570 players had slotted in their name to feature in the tournament. But only 96 of them were picked by eight teams with 474 players going unsold. With only three overseas slots available for each team, several big names didn’t find any takers in the draft and among them were Chris Gayle and Lasith Malinga as well.

Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan was the first pick of the day who was snaffled by Trent Rockets led by Joe Root. They also picked D’Arcy Short in the first round while Andre Russell and David Warner turned out to be Southern Brave’s first picks. Steve Smith is set to play for Welsh Fire while the hero of England’s summer Ben Stokes will play for Northern Superchargers.

There were a total of seven salary brackets – GBP 125,000, 100,000, 75,000, 60,000, 50,000, 40,000 and 30,000 – that led to seven rounds of two picks each. Every team had already signed two local cricketers including one England’s centrally contracted player before the draft. Also, they had to skip that particular price bracket in the draft for the respective selections they had already made.

Southern Bravo looks the strongest team at the moment. They have filled the team with plenty of pace options and batting firepower. They picked David Warner and Andre Russell to take care of the batting while Tymal Mills, Jofra Archer and Shadab Khan will look after the bowling department. Jonny Bairstow, Steve Smith, and Mitchell Starc will feature for Welsh Fire.

Stokes, on the other hand, has been joined by Aaron Finch and Chris Lynn at the Northern Superchargers. As far as the unsold players are concerned, Babar Azam and Kagiso Rabada were other major exclusions apart from Gayle and Malinga. However, Shakib Al Hasan, Trent Boult, Kieron Pollard, and Dwayne Bravo also didn’t find any takers in The Hundred draft.

Here are the final squads of all the teams:
Oval Invincibles
Sunil Narine, Sandeep Lamichhane, Fabian Allen, Tom Curran, Jason Roy, Sam Billings, Rilee Rossouw, Reece Topley, Hardus Viljoen, Alex Blake, Will Jacks, Chris Wood, Nathan Sowter, Laurie Evans.

Trent Rockets
Joe Root, Rashid Khan, D’Arcy Short, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Harry Gurney, Alex Hales, Lewis Gregory, Steven Mullaney, Matthew Carter, Luke Wood, Tom Moores, Dawid Malan, Ben Cox, Luke Fletcher, Luke Wright.

London Spirit
Rory Burns, Glenn Maxwell, Mohammad Nabi, Mohammad Amir, Dan Lawrence, Eoin Morgan, Roelof van der Merwe, Mark Wood, Joe Denly, Mason Crane, Kyle Abbott, Adam Rossington, Zak Crawley, Jade Dernbach, Luis Reece.

Northern Superchargers
Ben Stokes, Aaron Finch, Mujeeb-Ur-Rahman, Chris Lynn, Adil Rashid, David Willey, Adam Lyth, Richard Gleeson, Ben Foakes, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, David Wiese, Nathan Rimmington, Brydon Carse, Ed Barnard, John Simpson.

Manchester Originals
Jos Buttler, Imran Tahir, Daniel Christian, Mitchell Santner, Saqib Mahmood, Matt Parkinson, Dane Vilas, Phil Salt, Tom Abell, Wayne Madsen, Wayne Parnell, Joe Clarke, Marchant de Lange, Eddie Byrom, Ed Pollock.

Southern Brave
Jofra Archer, Andre Russell, David Warner, Shadab Khan, Chris Jordan, James Vince, Liam Dawson, Tymal Mills, Ross Whiteley, Delray Rawlins, Ollie Pope, George Garton, Alex Davies, Max Waller, Craig Overton.

Welsh Fire
Jonny Bairstow, Mitchell Starc, Steve Smith, Qais Ahmed, Tom Banton, Colin Ingram, Ben Duckett, Ravi Rampaul, Simon Harmer, Liam Plunkett, Ryan ten Doeschate, David Payne, Ryan Higgins, Danny Briggs, Leus du Plooy.

Birmingham Phoenix
Chris Woakes, Kane Williamson, Shaheen Afridi, Adam Zampa, Moeen Ali, Pat Brown, Liam Livingstone, Ravi Bopara, Benny Howell, Tom Helm, Adam Hose, Cameron Delport, Henry Brookes, Riki Wessels, Chris Cooke.

(Agencies)