Jason Roy will not feature in the Hundred this summer after going unselected in Wednesday night's draft at the Shard in London, leaving him without a team for the 2024 season following his release by defending men's champions Oval Invincibles.
Roy played every game for the Invincibles last summer but failed to make an impact, with more ducks (three) than half-centuries (one) and was released by their coach Tom Moody last month. He entered the draft with a reserve price of £100,000, but the eight men's teams prioritised overseas players in the early rounds.
Mark Wood, who also entered with a £100,000 reserve price, also went unpicked, but his non-selection was less notable given that he had pulled out of the first three seasons of the Hundred through injury or to manage his workload. England's red-ball players will miss the start of the competition, which begins on July 23 this year, due to a clash with the third Test against West Indies.
Roy would have been unavailable for the first few days of the Hundred due to his commitments with LA Knight Riders in Major League Cricket - which is expected to run until July 28 - and is also set to miss some of Surrey's T20 Blast group games for the same reason. He could yet feature in the Hundred this summer as a replacement but his snub highlights a swift decline in Roy's standing in the four-and-a-half years since England's 2019 World Cup win.
Five of the seven players signed on top-bracket £125,000 contracts in the men's draft were West Indies power-hitters, with the new Northern Superchargers coach Andrew Flintoff choosing Nicholas Pooran as the first signing of the draft. Andre Russell and Shimron Hetmyer will play for London Spirit, Kieron Pollard has joined Southern Brave and Rovman Powell was a top pick at Trent Rockets.
While some West Indians may miss the first game or two due to their involvement in MLC, they are expected to be available for the majority of the season and may skip a T20I series against South Africa. The ECB held talks with the Caribbean Premier League's organisers earlier this year to avoid a clash with the Hundred, which appears to have been vindicated.
Tom Kohler-Cadmore will again be a top earner, joining Welsh Fire on a £125,000 deal. He will play alongside Shaheen Shah Afridi, who was brought back after his success last summer, while Shaheen's Pakistan team-mate Naseem Shah was a top-bracket pick by Birmingham Phoenix.
Laurie Evans has moved to Southern Brave after two seasons at Manchester Originals, while Dawid Malan - the leading run-scorer in the Rockets' 2022 title - was a £50,000 signing by the Invincibles. Ollie Pope and Richard Gleeson have both joined London Spirit, while the Originals have brought in Sikandar Raza and Fazalhaq Farooqi.
The ECB's decision to raise the top salaries in the women's Hundred was vindicated by the number of leading Australian players who entered the draft, with Beth Mooney (Manchester Originals), Meg Lanning (London Spirit), Ash Gardner (Trent Rockets) and Annabel Sutherland (Northern Superchargers) all picking up £50,000 contracts.
Amy Jones was a surprise first pick of the draft, returning to Birmingham Phoenix after failing to agree a retention last month, while Sri Lanka's Chamari Athapaththu was the first pick for the Invincibles. Smriti Mandhana (Southern Brave) and Richa Ghosh (Birmingham Phoenix) were the two India internationals picked up.
Each team will add a further two players to both their men's and women's squads ahead of the start of the season in July, who will be offered 'wildcard' contracts based on their performances in domestic T20 cricket. These will be worth £30,000 in the men's competition and £8,000 in the women's.
How the squads stack up
Birmingham Phoenix
Men's squad: Chris Woakes, Naseem Shah, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Ben Duckett, Benny Howell, Adam Milne, Jamie Smith, Will Smeed, Sean Abbott, Tom Helm, James Fuller, Dan Mousley, Jacob Bethell
Women's squad: Amy Jones, Sophie Devine, Richa Ghosh, Ellyse Perry, Katie Levick, Issy Wong, Emily Arlott, Hannah Baker, Seren Smale, Alisa Lister, Chloe Brewer, Sterre Kalis, Charis Pavely
London Spirit
Men's squad: Zak Crawley, Andre Russell, Shimron Hetmyer, Nathan Ellis, Dan Lawrence, Liam Dawson, Dan Worrall, Olly Stone, Adam Rossington, Richard Gleeson, Ollie Pope, Daniel Bell-Drummond, Matthew Critchley, Michael Pepper
Women's squad: Meg Lanning, Heather Knight, Grace Harris, Danielle Gibson, Charlie Dean, Sarah Glenn, Cordelia Griffith, Georgia Redmayne, Eva Gray, Sophie Munro, Hannah Jones, Tara Norris, Niamh Holland
Manchester Originals
Men's squad: Jos Buttler, Jamie Overton, Phil Salt, Sikandar Raza, Paul Walter, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Tom Hartley, Usama Mir, Wayne Madsen, Josh Tongue, Max Holden, Josh Hull, Fred Klaassen, Mitchell Stanley
Women's squad: Beth Mooney, Sophie Ecclestone, Sophie Molineux, Laura Wolvaardt, Lauren Filer, Eve Jones, Emma Lamb, Mahika Gaur, Fi Morris, Kathryn Bryce, Phoebe Graham, Ellie Threlkeld, Liberty Heap
Northern Superchargers
Men's squad: Ben Stokes, Nicholas Pooran, Adil Rashid, Harry Brook, Reece Topley, Daniel Sams, Matthew Short, Brydon Carse, Adam Hose, Tom Lawes, Matthew Potts, Graham Clark, Callum Parkinson, Ollie Robinson
Women's squad: Annabel Sutherland, Phoebe Litchfield, Georgia Wareham, Kate Cross, Bess Heath, Linsey Smith, Alice Davidson-Richards, Hollie Armitage, Grace Ballinger, Marie Kelly, Lucy Higham, Ella Claridge, Devina Perrin
Oval Invincibles
Men's squad: Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Will Jacks, Adam Zampa, Jordan Cox, Gus Atkinson, Sam Billings, Saqib Mahmood, Spencer Johnson, Dawid Malan, Nathan Sowter, Donovan Ferreira, Tom Lammonby, Tawanda Muyeye
Women's squad: Chamari Athapaththu, Marizanne Kapp, Alice Capsey, Lauren Winfield-Hill, Amanda-Jade Wellington, Tash Farrant, Mady Villiers, Paige Scholfield, Sophia Smale, Ryana MacDonald-Gay, Jo Gardner, Lizzie Scott, Georgie Boyce
Southern Brave
Men's squad: Jofra Archer, Kieron Pollard, James Vince, Chris Jordan, Tymal Mills, Laurie Evans, Leus du Plooy, Akeal Hosein, Rehan Ahmed, Craig Overton, Finn Allen, Danny Briggs, George Garton, Alex Davies
Women's squad: Smriti Mandhana, Danni Wyatt, Chloe Tryon, Lauren Bell, Maia Bouchier, Freya Kemp, Naomi Dattani, Georgia Adams, Lauren Cheatle, Kalea Moore, Tilly Corteen-Coleman, Rhianna Southby, Mary Taylor
Trent Rockets
Men's squad: Joe Root, Rovman Powell, Rashid Khan, Imad Wasim, Alex Hales, Lewis Gregory, Luke Wood, Tom Banton, John Turner, Sam Hain, Sam Cook, Calvin Harrison, Jordan Thompson, Adam Lyth
Women's squad: Ash Gardner, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Grace Scrivens, Alana King, Heather Graham, Bryony Smith, Katie George, Kirstie Gordon, Grace Potts, Alexa Stonehouse, Josie Groves, Kira Chathli, Cassidy McCarthy
Welsh Fire
Men's squad: Jonny Bairstow, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, David Willey, Shaheen Afridi, Joe Clarke, Haris Rauf, Tom Abell, Glenn Phillips, David Payne, Luke Wells, Roelof van der Merwe, Jake Ball, Stevie Eskinazi, Chris Cooke
Women's squad: Hayley Matthews, Sophia Dunkley, Shabnim Ismail, Tammy Beaumont, Jess Jonassen, Georgia Elwiss, Sarah Bryce, Freya Davies, Phoebe Franklin, Emily Windsor, Ella McCaughan, Claire Nicholas, Alex Griffiths