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New ground was laid for The Hundred in the 2026 player auction when Kavya Maran’s Sunrisers Leads bought Pakistan’s mystery spinner Abrar Ahmed for an astonishing £190,000, which is approximately ₹2.34 crore. The move ended years of unofficial exclusion of Pakistani players by Indian-owned teams and truly shook up the global T20 landscape. But the enthusiasm is already waning. Abrar’s potential debut at Headingley hangs in the balance: Pakistan’s international fixtures clash with The Hundred and the PCB’s NOC rules are becoming stricter. There’s a real possibility Sunrisers Leeds’ big prize won’t even set foot on the field this summer.
Scheduling conflict: West Indies Test tour of Pakistan 2026
Abrar Ahmed faces a difficult situation as his national team responsibilities directly clash with The Hundred’s schedule. Pakistan will tour the West Indies for a two-match Test series from July 15 to August 7, 2026, right in the middle of the ICC World Test Championship timeline. The Hundred begins on July 21 and ends on August 16, meaning Abrar will have to be in the Caribbean during most of the group stages of the tournament. Sure, Noman Ali and Sajid Khan are the main red-ball spinners at the moment, but Abrar is still an important part of the team. It is not realistic to let him go for a franchise league during the World Test Championship window.
PCB NOC controversy and Mohsin Naqvi’s strict policy
Apart from managing his calendar, Abrar Ahmed will also have to adhere to the PCB’s more stringent NOC rules. After a series of international failures in 2025, PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi introduced a system where the granting of NOCs is dependent on performance-based assessment and management of player workload. On the one hand, the board has not sanctioned big tournaments like Global T20 Canada and The Hundred (especially in the case of Naseem Shah) with the aim of retaining players for Test matches.
Although Abrar’s representative is hopeful that the spinner maintains a good rapport with the board, insiders believe that the chances of getting the NOC are equal for both the parties. For Kavya Maran and head coach Daniel Vettori, the biggest threat to their 2026 campaign is the absence of a major foreign signing which could be blocked by the board.