Get ready. The women’s squads will be selected in a brand-new way in 2023. Settle in, and we’ll explain how it works.

Selection will take place in a three-stage process.

All players will be selected in one of seven salary bands. Two players will receive each of salary bands A to F, with A being the most expensive, and three players will receive band G.

Teams are allowed to sign a maximum of three overseas players, and three England Women central contract players. Each squad will be made up of 15 players.

HOW ARE MEN’S SQUADS SELECTED?

STAGE ONE – RETENTION

If you’ve fallen in love with watching some of your team’s current players, don’t worry. Each squad can retain four players from the 2022 group.

But: teams do not have to use up all their retention slots. So it might be that a team chooses to keep none of their players!

Within a squad, each team has a number of "marquee players." These are either England Women’s central contract players, or overseas players. During retention, a squad can keep a maximum of three marquee players – but with a maximum of two England or overseas players.

For example, reigning champions Oval Invincibles could choose to keep Alice Capsey (England), Dane van Niekerk and Marizanne Kapp (both overseas). But they wouldn’t be able to keep Shabnim Ismail too – at this stage, at least.

All players signed in Stage One must sign in salary bands A to D, which means that players can negotiate a different salary to which they were signed in 2022.

The retention window opens at the start of December and runs until mid-January. We’ll announce retained players in February.

Make sense so far? We hope so – because the next stage is the fun one.

STAGE TWO – THE DRAFT POWERED BY SAGE

The Player Draft has been one of the most exciting elements of the Men’s Competition, and now it’s coming to the Women’s Competition. Mark your card: it’ll be here in March.

Each team will draft players in turn until they have eight members of their squad selected. All signings must be within salary bands A to D.

All players must register ahead of the Draft and, when doing so, they’ll get the option to set themselves a reserve price. This is the lowest salary band they can receive. So, if a player made their reserve price band B, no team could sign them at band C or D.

Teams select in turn from their top salary band down, skipping any slots where they retained a player. The Draft order is the reverse of the final 2022 standings, so Welsh Fire will go first, and Oval Invincibles will go last.

If your favourite player isn’t retained, and isn’t signed in the Draft, don’t worry! They can still be signed in the final stage.

There’s one complex thing during the Draft. Each team gets one "Right to Match" option. This option enables a team to re-sign one of their 2022 players that they didn’t previously retain, when a rival team offers to buy them during the Draft. Remember our Oval Invincibles example? Let’s continue it: if Welsh Fire wanted to sign Shabnim Ismail in band B, and Invincibles had a spare slot, this is where they play their "Right to Match" option.

Teams using their "Right to Match" must offer the same salary as the player’s prospective new team. If they’ve already filled up all their slots at that band, the option isn’t available to them.

Once the Draft is complete, each team will still have seven vacant slots.

STAGE THREE – OPEN MARKET

This is the final stage, and one which has been in place during each edition of the Women’s Competition so far.

The remaining seven players are signed in an open market basis. Want a player? Offer them a contract. Salary bands E to G are open to teams here.

And that’s it! Squads will be completed by the end of June, before The Hundred gets under way in the summer.

Make sure you’re signed up to The Hundred to get priority access to tickets, and to get all the latest news and updates delivered straight to your inbox.