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ECB looking into draft system for new 100-ball domestic competition

By Declan Olley

Saturday 21 April 2018 10:46, UK

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ECB chief commercial officer and MD for the new 100-ball competition, Sanjay Patel, tells Sky Sports News the format could feature a player draft system

The England and Wales Cricket Board want the new 100-balls-a-side competition to have a player draft with the organisation “confident” it can attract the world’s best players.

On Thursday, the ECB proposed a new eight-team tournament that will see each team face 15 six-ball overs followed by an additional 10 deliveries.

ECB chief commercial officer and MD for the new competition, Sanjay Patel, has told Sky Sports News the competition could feature a player draft system mirroring the Indian Premier League's auction.

Patel said: "We're currently looking at a draft system. How that potentially would work is all the players that would be available for this competition would go into a hat and then we would have a draft system in order to get our eight teams."

The IPL and Australia's Big Bash tournaments have featured overseas stars such as AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo, and Patel is positive the new ECB tournament can attract the world's best players.

Chennai Super Kings' Dwayne Bravo plays a shot during the 2018 IPL cricket match against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede stadium on April 7, 2018
Image: The IPL and Australia's Big Bash tournaments have featured overseas stars such as Dwayne Bravo

Asked about the importance of having top-level cricketers in the competition, he said: "I think it is massively important. This tournament needs to have great cricket at the heart of it.

"We still need to get to best v best in order to create that product that people want to watch so we're very confident the overseas players are going to want to come and play in this new format."

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Former England captain Michael Vaughan said the introduction of another format could confuse some fans but Patel says the tournament has been run past "high-profile players".

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Asked if cricket's finest had been consulted on the idea, Patel said: "Of course we have. I think we couldn't get today without checking our rationale and checking our thinking.

"We've talked to some high-profile players and we've obviously talked wider than that as well so we just really wanted to check that we were onto something.

"People were saying to us 'this is exciting, this is different, this can make a difference to your game'."

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