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England men’s Test captain, Joe Root: “I’m incredibly excited to play for the Trent Rockets in The Hundred. This year has been monumental for cricket and we have seen achievements like never before. The best players in the world are coming here to compete and we’re going to get the chance to test ourselves against them once again. There has never been a more exciting time for cricket.’’

So England captain Joe Root will NOT be playing in Leeds. If you can pick Ben Stokes, you pick Ben Stokes. Right?

One long entry coming up - here's who each team have picked.

Image source, ECB

Birmingham Phoenix

Men: Chris Woakes, Moeen Ali, Pat Brown

Women: Amy Jones, Kirstie Gordon

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London Spirit

Men: Rory Burns, Dan Lawrence, Eoin Morgan

Women: Heather Knight, Freya Davies

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Manchester Originals

Men: Jos Buttler, Saqid Mahmood, Matt Parkinson

Women: Kate Cross, Sophie Ecclestone

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Northern Superchargers

Men: Ben Stokes, Adil Rashid, David Willey

Women: Lauren Winfield, Linsey Smith

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Oval Invincibles

Men: Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Jason Roy

Women: Laura Marsh, Fran Wilson

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Southern Brave

Men: Jofra Archer, Chris Jordan, James Vince

Women: Anya Shrubsole, Danni Wyatt

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Trent Rockets

Men: Joe Root, Harry Gurney, Alex Hales

Women: Nat Sciver, Katherine Brunt

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Welsh Fire

Men: Jonny Bairstow, Tom Banton, Colin Ingram

Women: Katie George, Bryony Smith

Here we go...

Mark Richardson: Along pretty much one stretch of road stretching less than 1.5 miles you have Nottingham Panthers at the Ice Arena, Notts County FC, Nottingham Forest FC, Nottm Rugby and then Trent Bridge Cricket Ground. No better concentrated area of sport surely?

Just a few minutes left now until we announce the names of the teams, the kits, the colours - and which players they have selected first...

Such divisive times we live in. You can vote for seven cities and the only one people are talking about is one that you can't...

P Louey: Leicester for the best sporting city. Top flight football team, rugby team, champion basketball team, county cricket team. Many other diverse teams also, such as Speedway, American Football and baseball

Neil Young: only one winner of best sporting city. Leicester. City, Premier League winners. Tigers, numerous premiership and European wins. Foxes, County and t20 champions. Riders, basketball titles galore and Mark Selby in the snooker

Chris Lawton: Leicester is definitely the best sporting city in the UK. Top class football, rugby, cricket, and basketball.

Guy I'm from Northampton so you are playing my tune here - but even I would say it's a stretch to call it the best sporting town in the UK!

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A reminder of the red ball contracted players who were in this first part of the draft:

Jofra Archer (Sussex), Jonny Bairstow (Yorkshire), Jos Buttler (Lancashire), Joe Root (Yorkshire), Ben Stokes (Durham), Chris Woakes (Warwickshire), James Anderson (Lancashire), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Rory Burns (Surrey), Sam Curran (Surrey).

Just over 20 minutes until the picks are announced...

KeanIn: Got to be Manchester for best sporting city. 2 PL clubs, cricket team, top flight rugby clubs in both codes. Adding in the quality of those venues, plus the arena for boxing and we have it all

There's a few headaches when it comes to selection. Did, for example, the Leeds-based team choose Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow or Joe Root as their first pick?

And did the Manchester team, who play at Old Trafford where there is an end named after James Anderson, opt for the legendary England fast bowler or Jos Buttler?

And, surely, Southampton will want to take advantage of having Jofra Archer as their first pick?

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On 20 October, the remaining places in the 15-man squads will be filled via a full draft - West Indies batsman Chris Gayle and Australia's Steve Smith have made themselves available for the tournament.

There are seven set salary bands, with up to two players to be picked at each of the following: £125,000, £100,000, £75,000, £60,000, £50,000, £40,000 and £30,000. Captains will receive a bonus of £10,000.

Adrian in hometown vote shock.

In an effort to attract more families to the game, the competition will be played in the school summer holidays - from 17 July to 16 August, 2020.

Teams will play each other once, apart from their paired 'rivals', whom they meet twice (home and away). There will be 32 league matches in total, with the top three finishers competing in the Finals Day (top team automatically reaches the final, with second versus third for the other spot in the final).

The women's draft is slightly different. In the first stage, teams will sign two players from the 21 who are centrally contracted to England.

Stage two of the player selection process (1 October 2019 - 30 May 2020) will then see each team fill the remaining 13 spaces in their squad from across three different player pools: the remaining England centrally contracted players, overseas players and domestic players.