The Men's Hundred 2020: Preview, Cricket Match Schedule, Fantasy Predictions & Team Squads

All you need to know about the men's edition of The Hundred 2020 which comprises of 34 100-ball games with eight franchises fighting it out over a month.

It was the ECB that first came up with the idea of T20 cricket that led to the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup being played in 2007. But India, the first-ever world champions of the tournament, ran away with the format and made it their own.

The Indian Premier League, which kicked off next year, became the leading T20 league across the world. After a period of reluctance, the ECB finally gave in and allowed Ben Stokes and Chris Woakes to participate in the extravaganza in 2017. And, the floodgates opened since.

With cricket having already having lost the battle to rugby and football in the UK and with it being on a further decline, the ECB has come up with a new format altogether to attract the attention of the people, especially the young. Both innings of every match in The Hundred will have 100 balls each, hence the name.

After two years of planning, marketing and pumping millions of pounds into the project, it is now time for the big unveil. 

The Hundred 2020 will feature eight teams - Oval Invincibles, Welsh Fire, Birmingham Phoenix, London Spirit, Manchester Originals, Northern Superchargers, Southern Brave and Trent Rockets.

The competition will have a total of 34 100-ball games, 32 of them in the group stage with each team playing eight games in the league stage. As of now, the league is slated to kick start on July 17 with the encounter between Oval Invincibles and Welsh Fire at the Kennington Oval.

The team finishing first on the points table after the group games will qualify directly to the final, and will compete against the winner of the semi-final played between the second and the third ranked teams.

Some of the biggest names across the world are set to ply their trade in the league. Apart from most of the England players that will certainly make their presence felt, the big overseas names include Andre Russell, Aaron Finch, Chris Lynn, Steve Smith, Rashid Khan, Glenn Maxwell, Kane Williamson, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Mohammad Amir, Shaheen Afridi, Shadab Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Imran Tahir, Mohammad Nabi, Sunil Narine and Mitchell Santner.

Tournament Predictions

Winner -  London Spirit

Runners-up - Welsh Fire

Top Run Scorer -  Eoin Morgan (London Spirit)

Top Wicket Taker - Mitchell Starc (Welsh Fire)

Most Sixes - Glenn Maxwell (Souther Brave)

  Here are the squads of all teams:

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

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

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

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

Oval Invincibles - Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Jason Roy, Sunil Narine, Sam Billings, Sandeep Lamichhane, Rilee Rossouw, Reece Topley, Hardus Viljoen, Fabian Allen, Alex Blake, Will Jacks, Chris Wood, Nathan Sowter, Laurie Evans.

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

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

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

Here is the full schedule of the tournament: 

©Cricket World 2020