Star names are back with Birmingham Phoenix for The Hundred

England stars Moeen and Woakes are among the men retained at Edgbaston for the competition, while Perry is joined back in the women’s team by Amy Jones, Em Arlott and Shropshire’s Issy Wong.

Teams will be further strengthened when the draft takes place next month – and former Wolverhampton and West Bromwich-Dartmouth all-rounder Moeen cannot wait to get the competition started in August.

He said: “We’re really excited about having retained 10 players ahead of the third year of the competition. 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.”

Liam Livingstone, Adam Milne, Benny Howell, Will Smeed, Kane Richardson, Tom Helm, Chris Benjamin, and Dan Mousley have also been retained. As a centrally-contracted player, Woakes is automatically retained as well.

Phoenix’s men and women both just missed out on a place in their respective eliminator matches last year on net run-rate last year after finishing fourth in the standings.

But the men will be hoping Moeen, Woakes and Pakistan leg-spinner Shadab Khan can take them at least one step further.

Rashid Khan, Jos Buttler, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Smriti Mandhana and Glenn Maxwell are among the list of players who have been retained by other teams in The Hundred.

Across both competitions, 114 players have been retained in total, meaning 134 spots remain to be filled at draft and across the open market process in the women’s competition.

Birmingham Phoenix open their campaign against Northern Superchargers on August 3, before welcoming Trent Rockets to Edgbaston on August 5. Both matches are men’s and women’s double-headers.