The Hundred 2023: Smriti Mandhana retained by Southern Brave; Stokes, Bairstow, Archer return

England Test captain Ben Stokes has been retained by the Northern Superchargers for this year’s edition of The Hundred after missing last year’s event due to a heavy workload. Jonny Bairstow and Jofra Archer will also remain with the Welsh Fire and Southern Brave respectively on their return after missing The Hundred 2022 due to injury. The eight Hundred franchises confirmed their retained list on Thursday with a draft to make up the remainder of their squads set for March 23. Teams in the men’s competition were able to retain 10 players while the women’s franchises could keep four of their 2022 group. Smriti Mandhana, who was the most expensive player at last week’s inaugural Indian Women’s Premier League auction, is retained by the Southern Brave. England one-day captain Jos Butler remains with the Manchester Originals and Moeen Ali is hoping to go one better as Birmingham Phoenix captain after finishing runners-up in 2021. “We’re really excited about having retained 10 players ahead of the third year of the competition,” said Ali. “We’ve seen across short-form competitions around the world that keeping a core squad together can make a real difference and hopefully it’ll help us win the Hundred this year. “We’ve got a lot of talented players and it’s a great group, so we can’t wait to get out in front of the Edgbaston crowd again.” Read all the  Latest News ****,  Trending News ****,  Cricket News ****,  Bollywood News ****,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook****,  Twitter and  Instagram****.