MUMBAI: After a successful inaugural season last year, England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) The Hundred returns tonight, August 3, at 11:30pm.
The 100-ball cricket competition will see eight women’s and men’s teams from major English and Welsh cities compete across 60 matches over five weeks.
Digital sports platform FanCode, which signed a 4-year exclusive media rights deal with ECB in 2021, will be the only platform to exclusively live-stream the tournament in India through the FanCode app (Android, iOS, TV) and www.fancode.com.
The eight city-based teams are Birmingham Phoenix (Edgbaston), London Spirit (Lord’s), Manchester Originals (Emirates Old Trafford), Northern Superchargers (Emerald Headingley), Oval Invincibles (Kia Oval), Southern Brave (Ageas Bowl), Trent Rockets (Trent Bridge) and Welsh Fire (Sophia Gardens). Each of the eight squads have 15 players with a maximum of three overseas stars.
The men’s competition features international T20 regulars Kieron Pollard, Glenn Maxwell, Andre Russell, Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler, Liam Livingstone, Faf du Plessis, Dwayne Bravo, Sunil Narine, Rashid Khan, Joe Root, Moeen Ali and Quinton de Kock, among others. All eyes will be on the swashbuckler Jos Buttler, who will join his team Manchester Originals on the back of a successful IPL stint, where he smashed a total of 824 runs. Another batter who is all set to grab attention is de Kock, who scored a total of 502 runs with a strike rate 149 and an average of 38.61 for his new team, Lucknow Super Giants.
Two of the leading Indian star performers, Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues, have been retained by Southern Brave and Northern Superchargers respectively and will continue to showcase their prowess in the women’s competition. Indian opening batter Smriti Mandhana contributed significantly to the success of the Southern Brave in the Women’s Hundred with 167 runs in seven innings at an average of 27.83, whereas Jemimah Rodrigues emerged as one of Hundred’s leading run scorers for Northern Superchargers. Additionally, Deepti Sharma has been roped in as a wildcard for Birmingham Phoenix. During the maiden season of the tournament, Deepti took over the mantle of London Spirit’s key all-rounder and scored 77 runs along with an overall 10 wicket haul during her 8 appearances.
FanCode is curating a comprehensive and immersive digital experience aimed at redefining how fans consume sports, right from selecting statistics and analysis of choice through interactive overlays, while watching the live stream. Fans will also be able to rewatch and relive any moment from the game almost in real-time. Another offering unique to FanCode is their focus on keeping the series accessible to all users with subscription options like Tour Pass, where fans can select and pay just for the entire series. The series can be watched LIVE on the FanCode mobile app (Android, iOS), FanCode TV app available on Android TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Jio STB, Samsung TV, and through the Web on www.fancode.com.
The Hundred women’s competition 2022 will start on August 11, and each of The Hundred 2022 women’s games will be a doubleheader with the men’s matches.
Related Report
FanCode bags 4-yr b’cast rights for ECB’s new format competition
