As The Hundred returns for 2026 – reside on Sky Sports activities from Tuesday July 21 to Sunday August 16 – we take a look at what has modified for the ECB’s 100-ball competitors…
New group trophy
An innovation this yr is for a mixed males’s and girls’s trophy to be awarded to the Hundred group performing finest throughout each competitions, along with the person males’s and girls’s titles that will likely be introduced to the event winners.
Each match win – whether or not within the group stage, eliminator or last – is value 4 factors with a franchise’s males’s and girls’s totals added up for a mixed rating.
4 bonus factors every are up for grabs for the boys’s and girls’s sides that prime the league desk, keep away from the eliminator and head straight to the competitors last.
If two franchises end degree on factors come the top of the event, the group with a squad that gained a last will triumph. If each franchises gained a last – or neither did – then most finalists and, if wanted, mixed web run-rate will decide a winner.
New house owners and group names
All eight sides now have abroad buyers, with offers for the Ambani household’s Reliance Industries Restricted to safe a 49 per cent stake in MI London – previously Oval Invincibles – and Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly’s Cain Worldwide to amass the identical stake in Trent Rockets accomplished in late 2025.
Offers for the opposite six groups had beforehand been sealed however that is the primary season the place the brand new buyers can actually stamp their authority.
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Actual Madrid and England midfielder Jude Bellingham has introduced his funding in Birmingham Phoenix earlier this yr
England footballer Jude Bellingham now holds a 1.2 per cent stake in Birmingham Phoenix and will likely be concerned in growing participation in cricket in the neighborhood.
Knighthead Capital Administration – who personal Bellingham’s former membership Birmingham Metropolis and have NFL legend Tom Brady as a minority shareholder – personal 48.4 per cent.
MI London are certainly one of 4 groups to have Indian Premier League-affiliated funding, with the Ambani household additionally proudly owning five-time IPL champions Mumbai Indians.
SunRisers Leeds – previously Northern Superchargers – are totally owned by the Solar Group that owns SunRisers Hyderabad, whereas RPSG Group – in control of Lucknow Tremendous Giants – maintain a 70 per cent stake in Manchester Tremendous Giants, beforehand Originals.
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Jos Buttler will play for a Manchester Tremendous Giants aspect that now options an elephant of their brand
Plus, GMR Group possesses a 49 per cent stake in Southern Courageous, including to a portfolio that features IPL’s Delhi Capitals and Hampshire.
Elsewhere, the American-based Tech Titans maintain a 49 per cent share of the Lord’s-based London Spirit, whereas Indian-American businessman Sanjay Goval, who owns Main League Cricket outfit Washington Freedom, has a 50 per cent stake in Welsh Hearth.
New kits
This heavy abroad funding had additionally led to kits being tweaked, with the IPL-backed golf equipment now enjoying in the identical colors as their Indian counterparts.
MI London carried out in inexperienced underneath their Oval Invincibles moniker however will now put on blue with gold trim like Mumbai Indians, whereas SunRisers Leeds change from purple to orange to match SunRisers Hyderabad.
Listed below are the recent threads the gamers will likely be sporting in 2026
Southern Courageous’s inexperienced get-up has been ditched as they alter to blue and purple, the identical as Delhi Capitals, and Manchester Tremendous Giants swap from black and gray to the purple and blue stripes of Lucknow Tremendous Giants.
Birmingham Phoenix will don a black strip this time period – they beforehand turned out in orange and yellow – with London Spirit remaining in blue however now additionally having an MCC ‘egg and bacon’ yellow and purple stripe down their jersey.
Welsh Hearth keep in purple and Trent Rockets are nonetheless yellow and orange.
New cash
New house owners pumped over £500m into The Hundred once they bought all or a part of their golf equipment however the cash continued to be splashed within the event’s first public sale earlier this yr.
Sussex all-rounder James Coles – lately a part of England’s white-ball squads in opposition to India – was purchased for £390k by London Spirit within the males’s competitors, with Welsh Hearth forking out £200k on Jordan Cox after his player-of-the-tournament performances for Oval Invincibles, as they had been then, in 2025.
England all-rounder Dani Gibson was signed for £190k by SunRisers Leeds within the first Hundred public sale
The ladies’s public sale was notable for England all-rounder Dani Gibson incomes £190k as SunRisers Leeds got here calling and legends of the sport Beth Mooney (Australia) and Sophie Devine (New Zealand) securing £210k paydays from Trent Rockets and Welsh Hearth respectively.
Plus, to additional emphasise how The Hundred can now change a participant’s life, 18-year-old England spinner Tilly Corteen-Coleman went to Southern Courageous for £105k. Being a part of this competitors is very worthwhile gig for some.
Watch each match from The Hundred reside on Sky Sports activities between Tuesday July 21 and Sunday August 16, with day by day seeing a double-header of a girls’s fixture adopted by a males’s match on the similar venue.
Reigning girls’s champions SunRisers Leeds kick of their defence in opposition to MI London at The Oval on opening day (2.45pm first ball), earlier than MI London begin their pursuit of a fourth consecutive males’s title versus SunRisers Leeds from 6.30pm.
