Chris Gayle and Lasith Malinga priced themselves out of The Hundred, says Shane Warne

NICK FRIEND AT THE HUNDRED DRAFT: The two T20 stalwarts placed a reserve of £125,000 on their signatures, meaning that they could only be picked up in the first salary band

Shane Warne believes Chris Gayle and Lasith Malinga missed out on being selected in the Hundred draft because they priced themselves out of contention.

The two T20 stalwarts placed a reserve of £125,000 on their signatures, meaning that they could only be picked up in the first salary band, where there were 16 spots available, although three had already been taken up by Jason Roy, Eoin Morgan and Moeen Ali.

Given the depth of talent among the top bands – David Warner, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Rashid Khan and Andre Russell were among those to be signed up in the first two price categories, the commercial pull of the two veteran short-format superstars was not enough to see them picked up.

“I think they priced themselves wrong,” Warne admitted. “I think if they had gone for £100,000 rather than £125,000 they would both have got picked up.”

Gayle experienced an unusually barren run in the Caribbean Premier League, making 38 runs in the final five innings of the tournament. Malinga, meanwhile, showed in the last over of the 2019 final that his unique action and skillset still bring value.

Ultimately, the game has moved forwards and, while the pair remain world-class performers on their day, they have been usurped as the principal A-Listers on the T20 circuit. Kagiso Rabada, Shakib Al Hasan and Kieron Pollard were among other big names to miss out, but all three had potential availability clashes.

“It’s a tough one because they’ve been superstars for so long,” Northern Superchargers coach Darren Lehmann added.

^{Shane Warne believes Gayle and Malinga priced themselves out of Hundred contention}

“But then you’ve got the next generation knocking on the door, so you’ve got to look at your squad and who you think is going to be around. It’s still nine months away. When you’ve got two at £125,000, that’s probably the issue. You can only pick two.”

Warne also confirmed, perhaps unsurprisingly, that Eoin Morgan would captain his London Spirit side.

“I believe he’s probably the best white-ball captain going around,” said the Australian. “You watch him through the World Cup and all the players love playing for him. We are very similar in the way we thought. We were very much on the same page.

“We have seen the brand of cricket that Morgan wants to play; he just backs his players to play super-aggressively.

“In eight games, you hope to come off four or five times and the other couple might not. I like that brand of cricket; it’s a good style of cricket to play.

“I think you can start a culture; this is going to go on for a long time hopefully. It’s not just this year – it’s about next year and the year after and building those sides as well.

“Everyone is going to try and get a following; we’re very lucky at Lord’s that whatever game is played at Lord’s gets sold out. So, we want to make sure that we’ve got an entertaining brand of cricket that we play.”