Mohammad Amir, Sunil Narine amongst biggest overseas players to play The Hundred 2021

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has started off proceedings for the highly-anticipated inaugural edition of 'The Hundred 2021' with a restructuring of the teams created last year. An untried new format of the sport, 'The Hundred' was set to make its debut in 2020 but was postponed after the COVID-19 pandemic brought things to a standstill around the world. The ECB has now announced that teams can submit a list of retained and released players until February 4, 2021, post which they will conduct another, smaller draft to help teams fill their squads. 

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Mohammed Amir, Dawid Malan, Sunil Narine retain spots for The Hundred 2021

According to the rules of the tournament, each of the eight teams in the tournament can have a squad of up to 15 players. In a bid to boost the fortunes of England's centrally contracted players, the board has ruled that each team must take on at least one England Test player and just three overseas players. In light of the pandemic, the board also gave teams a last chance to make changes to their rosters from last year.

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While some earlier players have not made the cut, Pakistani fast bowler Mohammad Amir, West Indies all-rounder Sunil Narine and England batsman Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy have all been retained by their respective teams. Johnny Bairstow will remain with Welsh Fire, where he was awarded their top contract of £100,000. Dawid Malan, currently ranked the ICC's No.1 T20I batsman, will stay on with the Trent Rockets while Jason Roy will be a part of the Oval Invincibles. 

Roy will be joined by West Indies star, Sunil Narine who is one of the Invincibles' picks for one of their three available international slots. Meanwhile, Pakistan's Mohammad Amir and Afghanistan's Mohammad Nabi will be with the London Spirit side. The earlier salary brackets of £125,000, £100,000, £75,000, £60,000, £50,000, £40,000 and £30,000, that allowed for two picks from each band, have also been reduced by 20% due to the pandemic, giving players and teams a chance to renegotiate.

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Mohammad Amir retirement rumours

Just one month after announcing his retirement from international cricket, Pakistani pacer Mohammad Amir clarified his statement to say that he was only unavailable for selection from the national squad until the current team management, under coach Misbah-ul-Haq, led the team. The 28-year-old took to Twitter to add that he would definitely think about rejoining the squad once Ul-haq and co. left, claiming that he felt mentally tortured under the current management. He also added that this decision was in no way related to him being dropped from the squad for the recently-concluded New Zealand series.

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Image Credits: Lords Twitter and ICC website