Shane Warne has argued that the ECB should consider holding another draft for The Hundred given the postponement of the competition’s inaugural season.

Speaking on the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast, Warne, the head coach of the Lord’s-based London Spirit side, argued that the near two year gap between the original draft in October 2019 and the beginning of the tournament in 2021, should prompt a reconsideration  as to the make-up of the squads.

“What’ll be interesting though will be, it’ll have been two years when The Hundred starts from when we did the auction,” said Warne. “Will they have the same squads, will there be different players, some players might retire. Will they start from scratch again, will you have different squads? Will you have a 10-person core of that squad where you can only pick 10 (from a team’s original squad).

“It’ll be interesting to see what the ECB come up with about the rules and whether they say ‘we’re just going to start again’ or another alternative. I think everyone was pretty happy with the squads they had. But two years later from when the auction is, there’s a lot of time that’s passed where the players develop in that time or retire. People might be playing international cricket then, they might have been elevated (to the national set-up) so they’re not available as much, so you might have chosen a different squad because those players were more available (when the squads were originally chosen).”

Looking at Warne’s London Spirit squad, there a number of examples of where the two-year gap between the draft and the competition is likely to have an impact on players’ availability or ability.

For instance, players like Dan Lawrence and Zak Crawley, aged 22 and 21 respectively at the time of the draft, could possibly be far more involved with the senior England team in 2021 than what was predicted for them in 2020. Similarly, that gap could impact the usefulness of some of the older members of their squad too. The likes of Mohammad Nabi and Roelof van der Merwe were signed by Warne’s team at 34, but will both be 36 by the time the competition begins in 2021.