David Willey urges English cricket to embrace changes to The Hundred

Trent Rockets captain David Willey has urged English cricket to embrace potential changes on the horizon for The Hundred next season.

Rockets finished runners-up in the 2025 edition after a 26-run loss to Oval Invincibles in Sunday’s final at Lord’s.

It made it three consecutive titles for Invincibles, but there are fears within the playing group at Kia Oval that the squad will be broken up by new owners the Ambani family.

The England and Wales Cricket Board this summer sold off all eight franchises in a big-money auction, which raised more than £500million for the domestic game in this country.

As a trade-off, the ECB no longer has majority ownership of The Hundred and speculation has been rife that it could switch from its current 100-ball format to Twenty20 cricket and name changes may also occur.

Ex-England bowler Willey said: “As English (people) with cricket we can get very protective over things.

“You probably only have to look at when the T20 Blast came in and everyone turned their nose up at that, so, I think it’s only going to grow and get better.

“Obviously from my understanding up to now it’s all been run by ECB and having different people come in who will probably have more control over sponsors, kits, helping with marketing, I think it is really exciting to branch out from just being cricket, cricket, cricket.

“There is a lot to be learnt from how other things are done in the world and not just cricket.

“I think it creates a great opportunity to grow the game, grow the tournament and hopefully to grow English cricket, which is a big part of it.”

Oval Invincibles’ Jordan Cox, who won Hundred Player of the Year for his remarkable tally of 367 runs, has a different view.

During a wide-ranging press conference, Cox stated the 100-ball format should remain and suggested Invincibles cannot be any better than they currently are.

“No, it can’t, it’s as simple as that. It can’t get any better than this but at the end of the day it is whatever The Hundred want, whatever the franchise want, that is what they’ll do,” Cox reflected.