IPL-owned teams in The Hundred are reportedly planning not to recruit Pakistani players at the upcoming auction.
Four of eight The Hundred franchises have IPL-linked owners
Half of The Hundred's eight franchises - Manchester Super Giants, MI London, Southern Brave and Sunrisers Leeds - are fully or partly owned by companies that also have their respective teams in the IPL. As per The Telegraph, these four franchises will not bid for any Pakistan players during the auction, scheduled for March 11 and 12.
The reason behind the decision is attributed to geopolitical tensions between India and Pakistan, which also affected the ongoing T20 World Cup. The four franchises will thus refrain from signing any Pakistan players for fear of backlash.
BBC reported that a senior official from the ECB indicated the same to a player agent. However, Manchester Super Giants deputy chair James Sheridan said, "The only conversations we've had is to pick the two best squads to give us the best possible chance of winning the two competitions."
Mohammad Amir and Imad Wasim were the only two players from Pakistan who featured in the previous edition of The Hundred, while the likes of Shaheen Afridi, Shadab Khan and Haris Rauf have also featured in earlier seasons. No Pakistan women’s player has played the competition yet.
A similar pattern has been observed in other T20 leagues as well, with Indian-owned franchises refraining from signing Pakistan players, including in SA20, International League T20 and Major League Cricket. No Pakistan player has ever featured in four seasons of SA20, where all six teams are owned by IPL franchise groups.
“It’s a given, they have been doing the same all around the world,” an agent managing Pakistan cricketers told The Telegraph: “Now that they are in the Hundred, I don’t see any difference. I’ve personally reached out to franchises in ILT [ILT20], MLC, SA20 and now the Hundred. They would love to have Pakistanis but due to political pressure back in India, they will never risk going against the government. They will never admit in writing.”
Notably, Pakistan players haven’t featured in the IPL since 2009 following the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, whereas India and Pakistan haven’t played a bilateral series since 2012-13.
Nine Pakistani players have featured in The Hundred so far, but none were signed last season, primarily due to a clash with Pakistan's international calendar. In addition, the PCB's NOC policies have been in flux; chiefly following a rule of two T20 leagues apart from the PSL, there was an abrupt suspension of NOCs in September last year, the day after Pakistan lost the Asia Cup final to India.
ECB chief executive Richard Gould had addressed the possibility of IPL-owned teams likely ignoring Pakistan cricketers in July 2025, saying he expected “players from all nations to be selected for all teams”, before adding that there were “very clear anti-discrimination policies within cricket in England. If those are not adhered to, our cricket regulator will take action.”
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