England international Kate Cross hailed the ECB for their backing after confirming this summer's Hundred will begin with a women's standalone fixture. 

"It kind of blew my mind how I thought that it was something really cool, and then I thought about it and I thought it shouldn't be," Cross told GIVEMESPORT. 

"It shouldn't matter but you just always see that the men go first and 'why'. And I think it's just really the ECB putting a foot down and proving to everyone, personally I think actions speak louder than words and it's really easy to say that you support your women's team and their athletes, but there's now things getting put in place to really prove it.

"Between that and the prize money, I think you're telling everyone how you truly feel about the women's game and how much you want to support it, for us as players that's just important that we understand the ECB feel that way about us and that they value what we do."

Cross has signed up for London Spirit, who have also procured the likes of South Africa's Mignon du Preez and Lizelle Lee. In short, any concerns that top international players would not be drawn to the new tournament have been dashed. 

"That's half the battle, if you've got the biggest names wanting to play in this competition, then you know it's going to be a world-class tournament," Cross said. "So you see that in the IPL, in the Women's Big Bash, you see the best names playing in the best tournaments.

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"Why would you not give it a go and I think you'd be naive to write it off before it's even started." 

Cross could be the first player to bowl in the new format with women's players handed the chance to make history, but she insists nobody in the dressing room is too concerned about having to adapt to 100 balls. 

"It's always great to create history and as captain, there's always a chance I could be opening the batting as well, so I might be taking first ball," Cross said. 

"I think we go through phases of adapting to shorter formats anyway, when we move from Test match down to one-day cricket and then down to T20, you have this sense of it being a really drastically different game. It's not. You either have to do it for longer, or you have to do it for shorter. That's the simplicity of it. Instead of six balls, you've got five balls. 

"The fact there aren't as many balls to face, you just hope your best batters are facing more of the balls that there are going to be. It's going to look a little bit different. But it's a game of cricket and the best team's going to win it."