NICK FRIEND: This post-season slot now sits among the most important times of the year. Winter options now go well beyond a season of grade cricket. Tymal Mills and Mason Crane – among others – explain how they cope with the nerves of a draft
The Hundred draft may be the first of its kind in English sport but, in truth, it isn’t even the first draft of the cricketing week.
In total, 21 players on county contracts were picked up on Wednesday as the eight squads for this winter’s T10 league in Abu Dhabi were revealed.
It is a system that has become commonplace, part and parcel of the franchise world. The Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) and Pakistan Super League (PSL) will hold their own events in the next few weeks.
The BPL has been at the centre of some recent turmoil, with the national governing body now set to arrange this year’s competition after a disagreement with franchise owners. The Cricketer understands that the draft is set to take place in late October. The PSL draft is set for a month later.
For those on the freelance circuit, this is the most important time of the year. These days, winter options go well beyond a season of grade cricket; there is white-ball cricket to be played and money to be made.
The drafts, therefore, have become an unusual quirk of the industry – certainly not to the levels of obsession with which they are treated in the United States, where a nation comes to a virtual sporting standstill, but to a degree where they hold significant bearing on the schedules of some of the world’s finest cricketers.
“My world relies on these drafts,” Tymal Mills tells The Cricketer. His situation is not that of Chris Gayle or Rashid Khan, proven world-beaters on the international stage and, thus, first-picks wherever they go.
A congenital back condition means that his body can only truly cope with the strain of the very shortest formats, especially given the energy he exerts through his action and the pace he fires up.
The Vitality Blast with Sussex remains his centrepoint – he has just signed a new deal with the county, but he is immensely grateful to the franchise world for allowing him a career in the game.
“It’s where I make most of my money, playing in the winter in the overseas tournaments. When you’re reliant on them, you’re hoping to get picked up. If you don’t get picked up, then you’re hoping to get a replacement deal. It’s a huge deal.”
Mason Crane was drafted by Deccan Gladiators in the T10 league
The Hundred draft on Sunday, essentially, represents another job opportunity. He is desperate to be part of the competition – it doesn't clash with any other franchise tournament – and, as a rapid left-armer with a superb slower-ball, it is difficult to see how Mills will not be highly-coveted.
What he has learnt over time, however, is that you can never be too sure. Drafts are chaotic, confusing affairs – even the best-laid plans can quickly topple. It is a test of nerve, but also of back-up plans and flexibility.
“It’s nerve-wracking,” he admits. “You just tune in and you never know what’s going to happen. I’ve been in situations where my agent has told me there’s not that much interest and you end up getting picked.
“I’ve been in situations where I’ve been told there’s no doubt that a team would pick me at a certain price and then, when it comes to the time, they didn’t. You never know what to expect – you just have to hope for the best.
“You have to rely on your agent speaking and talking you up to enough teams and doing their job to give you the best possible chance.
“You really do never know. I’m sure, come Sunday, there will be some guys who will have expected to get decent salaries that will go unsold and there will be guys who won’t have expected to get picked at all maybe ending up getting some decent money.
“I do get nervous. I’ve been in drafts and auctions that have gone very well for myself, but I’ve also gone unsold.
“You genuinely don’t know what’s going to happen – you might think you’ve got a good idea. But I’ve been guaranteed that a team is going to pick me and they didn’t and you get burned. You go into them a bit more sceptical.
“But I’ve been in enough now, so I’m a bit more relaxed about it. So much changes between the draft and the tournament – there have been countless times where I’ll go unsold in a draft and my agent will text me, saying teams have picked a load of players who aren’t available.
“I don’t think it will be as much in this draft, but you’ll be surprised overseas by how many players get picked who aren’t going to be available for the tournament by teams who haven’t properly researched.”
In effect, the draft is an auction with a subtle difference. The price brackets are set in stone. Without a minimum reserve, you can be signed in any salary band.
In an auction, the base price is a mere starting point – it is not a case of who calls your name first, but who is left standing at the end of the bidding war. Mills knows; in 2017 he was a £1.4m signing for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League. It is a lottery.
Mason Crane is only learning the ropes. The leg-spinner is still just 22 years old; he has entered drafts before, but only because “I may as well put my name in”. On Wednesday, he was picked alongside Mills to form part of the Deccan Gladiators franchise in the T10 competition. It will be his first franchise experience.
It also marked the first time he had followed his own draft. He kept abreast of it all out of a need for certainty and clarity over his winter plans. He had spoken with Mushtaq Ahmed, Gladiators head coach, about putting his name forward and so believed there might be interest.
“Being picked was more of a confirmation for me with the T10 than a celebration,” he explains. “It was good because I finally had a plan with what I was going to be doing.
“I was slightly nervous because I had in my mind for a while that I could be doing it. And then it comes to it and I was just following it on the live blog – I wasn’t watching the feed.
“It’s weird that you just wait for your name to come out and it could come out at any moment.
“It’s the first time I’ve watched and eagerly anticipated my name coming out. That’s the hardest bit – it could happen at any moment, from the first down to the last.
“It’s a strange feeling, I will say that. Your fate is in someone else’s hands.”
Tymal Mills (back left) ended up sat with the Edinburgh Rocks franchise at the Euro Slam after being drafted in July
Crane was among the final players to be picked, adding to the unusual experience. It is a far cry from this time last year, when a serious back injury ruled him out of playing at all during the winter months.
“I was just at home having dinner and I found out from other people first because the feed I was following was a few minutes behind,” he says of how he heard the good news.
“Everyone was texting me, saying well done. It was more a confirmation that now I’m actually going out there to do that.”
Sunday, of course, is a different story. For the many concerns that come with the new competition – several of which have not been adequately addressed, it marks a major opportunity for domestic cricketers.
For some without franchise experience, it will be the first time they have made extra earnings outside their regular contracts. As many as 330 have entered the draft from across the 18 counties, with a further 239 overseas players.
Durham red-ball opening batsman Cameron Steel is among those to have put his name forward, simply because he has nothing to lose. He will not be watching because he is out in Australia. He is certain that he will not get drafted, having not played T20 cricket for his county since 2017.
The wildcard option, however, gives him a relative long-term glimmer and leaves the door ajar for high-performing players like him in next year’s T20 Blast who are not picked in the main draft. Even then, Steel reserves his optimism for three teammates.
“I just won’t get picked, so I’m nervous for the guys who are on the brink,” he tells The Cricketer. “Guys like Nathan Rimmington, Scott Steel, Graham Clark – nervous for those guys because they do deserve it.
“Rimmington’s stats are unbelievable. It’s those guys who are not necessarily glitz and glamour T20 players who might get overlooked when they probably shouldn’t get overlooked. Those are the only nerves that I have really.”
Ordinarily, Mills wouldn’t focus his day around a draft; after all, there is little that can be done to affect anything at that stage.
“I won’t centre my day around it but I’ll know if one’s going on,” he says. “The other night with the T10, I had it just running on my iPad in the background while I was doing other stuff, just listening out.
“They are so long that you don’t know whether you’re going to get picked up in the first round or three hours later. You just let it run out and you hope you hear your name – and then it’s a case of 'where am I and who am I going to be playing with?'”
There is no great celebration, he insists. “I never go too mad, but it is a nice feeling,” he says, laughing off the idea that he might pop open a bottle of wine to toast the relief.
Sunday’s proceedings, however, represent something different. For one, Mills will be among the local majority rather than the overseas minority to which he has become accustomed. Of the 96 players to be drawn, there are 72 spots for domestic cricketers.
“This one is a bigger deal,” he admits. “It’s a home one and I’m sure the production of it will be really good. It’s going to be on TV, so I’ll sit down and watch it on Sunday night, as I’m sure a lot of others will.”
The Hundred draft sees each team pick 12 players, with three (Test player and two local icons) already selected
He has his own theories on how teams will go about their business; he questions whether franchises will use up their overseas spots up front, given the number of talented players who have given themselves lower - or no - reserve prices. Alex Carey, for example, a teammate of Mills at Sussex last season, has a £40,000 minimum tag and could become a valuable option in the latter rounds.
The alternative would mean stacking up on the top English players – Mills himself, Ravi Bopara, Dawid Malan and Sam Billings among them.
He is pleased he is not attending the draft, as some will be. If you don’t get picked up, it becomes a long evening of disappointment.
“The longer it goes without you being picked, your wage for the competition goes down and your chances of getting picked also go down,” he adds.
Crane, too, will be watching from home. “I’ve got a couple of mates coming round, so we’ll watch the football before and then get the draft on and hopefully it can be a good evening,” he chuckles.
He is not among the 19 domestic players to have placed a reserve price on their signature. He sees no point in doing so. “The money is almost irrelevant,” he says. “It’s about being part of it, being part of a team.”
The draft itself is a strategic game; Mills is able to quickly gauge interest from different teams. If a franchise opens up with two fast-bowling picks that are not him, he knows he is likely to be looking elsewhere.
At the draft for the ultimately postponed Euro T20 Slam, he ended up sitting with the Edinburgh Rocks decision-makers after he was picked up early on.
“It was interesting to see those last three or four picks, just trying to round out our squad,” he explains.
“That’s when you’re getting quite specific about what you need. Or you kind of swing for the fences with more of an outside pick, who might win you the tournament towards the end – a bit more of a wildcard.”
Chris Woakes, like Mills, has successfully worked his way through an IPL auction – first with Kolkata Knight Riders, then with Bangalore. He already has his Hundred deal, signing up as Birmingham Phoenix’s Test player. Yet, he recalls the tension that the event brings.
“It’s a strange concept,” he says. “I suppose it’s a little bit different to a draft in a way, because an auction is unlimited to a certain extent and people can keep bidding for you.
“If you watch it live [as a player], you’ve got a few nerves about it and whether you’re going to be picked up, whether your name is going to be read out and nobody puts their hand up.
“There are those little nerves about that. The prices are set in stone here, but I’m sure, when the players’ names are read out, they’ll be a little bit nervous. There’s no doubt about that.”
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