{"id":702280,"date":"2026-01-17T14:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T14:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/702280\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T14:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T14:36:13","slug":"the-hundred-2026-welsh-fire-and-mi-london-sign-international-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/702280\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hundred 2026: Welsh Fire and MI London sign international stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

MI London have retained Rashid Khan and added Nicholas Pooran while Welsh Fire have signed Freya Kemp and Rachin Ravindra for the 2026 Hundred season.<\/b><\/p>\n

New Zealand batter Ravindra joins his former Manchester Originals team-mate Phil Salt at Fire<\/a>, while England all-rounder Kemp and Australia all-round Georgia Wareham are the franchise’s first signings for the women’s side.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan leg-spinner Khan will be joined at MI’s men’s team by West Indies star Pooran, with New Zealand all-rounder Melie Kerr and Windies batter Hayley Matthews signing for the women’s team.<\/p>\n

Five-time Hundred champions MI – under their former Oval Invincibles guise – have already retained three England internationals<\/a> in batter Danni Wyatt-Hodge and all-rounders Sam Curran and Will Jacks.<\/p>\n

Teams are allowed to directly sign or retain four players before the auction – a new addition for this season<\/a> – which is set to take place in March.<\/p>\n

Khan, 27, helped his franchise win their third consecutive men’s title last year, having previously played three seasons for Trent Rockets.<\/p>\n

The big-hitting Pooran, 30, a veteran of the franchise circuit, has played one prior season in The Hundred – for Northern Superchargers in 2024.<\/p>\n

Kerr, 25, played last season with Originals, having spent 2022 and 2023 with London Spirit, while Matthews, 27, spent the first five seasons of The Hundred at Fire.<\/p>\n

“The signings we have made have built a terrific backbone for both the men’s and women’s teams,” said MI London chair Oli Slipper.<\/p>\n

“Fans were wowed by the performances of Rashid Khan at the Kia Oval last summer and Nicholas Pooran is an incredibly dynamic and exciting cricketer.<\/p>\n

“In Hayley Matthews and Melie Kerr, we have signed two players who have delivered on the biggest stages for their countries and have extensive experience in franchise cricket.”<\/p>\n

Kemp, 20, has spent five seasons at Southern Brave, winning the tournament in 2023.<\/p>\n

Wareham, 26, was with Superchargers for the past three years, but only played two games in their 2025 title-winning campaign.<\/p>\n

Ravindra, 26, played four games for Originals last season, averaging 30.33 and taking three wickets with his part-time spin.<\/p>\n

“It’s great that we’ve been able to secure three high quality players to come to Welsh Fire for next year,” said general manager Mark Wallace said.<\/p>\n

“This is very much a reset for the competition and these signings give us a fantastic base to build the squad from in the Hundred auction.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MI London have retained Rashid Khan and added Nicholas Pooran while Welsh Fire have signed Freya Kemp and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-702280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115910946551148389","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}