The Hundred: Your essential guide to the new 100-ball competition

Here's all you need to know about The Hundred, the new 100-ball competition that kicks off on Wednesday, live on Sky Sports.

What is The Hundred?

The Hundred is cricket like you have never seen it before.

The new 100-ball competition launched by the England and Wales Cricket Board aims to make cricket accessible for the whole family through shorter, faster matches that last less than three hours, fusing high-energy entertainment with fast-paced sporting action.

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It all kicks off on Wednesday - live on Sky Sports - as eight teams compete against each other across seven cities, with men's and women's teams competitions running alongside each other.

Who are the teams?

Want to know who Ben Stokes plays for? Which team will his old nemesis Carlos Brathwaite be lining up for? Nat Sciver takes her immense talents where? And who benefits from Sarah Taylor coming out of retirement?

For an up-to-date squad list of the eight competing teams, click here, while you can find out more about each individual team via our team guides below...

Birmingham Phoenix

London Spirit

Manchester Originals

Northern Superchargers

Oval Invincibles

Southern Brave

Trent Rockets

Welsh Fire

What are the rules?

• Each innings lasts 100 balls and is scheduled to take 65 minutes.

• Two sets of five deliveries will be bowled before changing ends.

• A bowler can bowl two successive sets of five from the same end or successive sets of five from each end.

• Each bowler can bowl a maximum of 20 deliveries in an innings.

• The Powerplay will be the first 25 deliveries of an 100-ball innings.

• The fielding team can take a two-minute strategic time-out at any stage after the first 25 deliveries.

• If a team is not in position to bowl the last five balls of the innings within 65 minutes, one fewer f­ielder will be permitted outside the f­ielding restriction area.

• No drinks intervals are permitted. Players may be given drinks at the boundary edge or at the fall of a wicket provided no playing time is wasted.

• If a batter is out caught, and the batters crossed while the ball was in the air, the non-striker returns to his/her original end.

• Each team will be allowed a maximum of one unsuccessful DRS review per innings.

• To constitute a match, a minimum of 25 balls has to be bowled to the side batting second, unless a result has been achieved earlier.

• Each team plays eight matches. There are 2 points awarded for a win, 1 point for a tie/no result and 0 points for a loss.

• The team finishing top of the group progresses straight to the final. The teams finishing second and third will compete in the 'Eliminator', with the winner progressing to the final.

• In the knock-out stages, if a match is tied, then a "Super 5" will be played, with the winner being the team which scores the most runs from a further five balls.

What availability do England's Men's Test players have?

The ECB has confirmed that players picked for the first two men's Test matches against India will be available for the first two rounds of The Hundred.

Player availability for the eliminator and final - which take place between the second and third Tests - will be revealed in due course.

Hundred sides cannot replace centrally-contracted England Test players but are able to sign temporary replacements for players that sit outside of that group.

How and where can I watch?

The tournament launches with a women's game, Oval Invincibles versus Manchester Originals at The Kia Oval on Wednesday, live from 6pm on Sky Sports' dedicated channel, Sky Sports The Hundred.

Andrew Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen, Stuart Broad, Tammy Beaumont and Dinesh Karthik are among the Sky Sports broadcast team for the inaugural edition of the competition.

Each of the 68 games - 34 men and 34 women - will be shown live on Sky Sports The Hundred as well as on Sky Sports Mix, while all women's matches and a significant number of men's games will be streamed live on the Sky Cricket YouTube channel.

The men's and women's finals will both be held at Lord's on Saturday, August 21, again broadcast live on Sky Sports The Hundred.

Watch The Hundred live on Sky Sports Cricket this summer. Non-Sky subscribers can follow all the action via the Sky Sports app, Sky Sports News and skysports.com.