Abrar Ahmed faces backlash, The Hundred stint in doubt.
Pakistan spinner Abrar Ahmed was signed for £190,000 during The Hundred auction in London Sunday by Sunrisers franchise.
The notification arrived on Abrar Ahmed’s phone while he was practicing in the nets at the National Stadium in Karachi. Seven thousand miles away, in a London auction room, his name had just been called. SunRisers Leeds had secured his services for 190,000 GBP—approximately Rs 2.34 crore. For a moment, the 26-year-old leg-spinner allowed himself to imagine what that money could mean: support for his aging parents, a better future for his younger siblings, the kind of security that cricket, for all its glory, rarely guarantees.
But even as his phone buzzed with congratulations, a familiar knot tightened in his stomach. Pakistan is scheduled to tour the West Indies from July 15 to August 7. Two commitments. One body. A choice that, in truth, may not be his to make.
In a modest house in the outskirts of Karachi, Abrar’s mother, Fatima, heard the news from a neighbor who had seen it scrolling on a news ticker. She doesn’t fully understand The Hundred or the GBP or the auctions, but she understood the number when her son called later that evening. “Two crore thirty-four lakh rupees,” he said, his voice caught somewhere between joy and uncertainty. She wept—not for the money, but for the weight she knew he carried, the dreams he had chased since childhood, the nights he had spent practicing his googly on the dusty streets of their mohalla.
The backlash began almost immediately. On social media, Pakistani fans expressed outrage that an Indian-owned franchise—SunRisers Leeds, sibling to the IPL’s Sunrisers Hyderabad—had signed one of their own. “How can he play for them?” some demanded. “Boycott Abrar!” others posted. The comments section became a battlefield of loyalties, with each side claiming ownership of a young man who had only ever wanted to bowl.
Abrar scrolled through the vitriol late that night, alone in his room. He saw his name twisted into arguments about politics and history, about borders and betrayals. He saw people who had never met him decide his character based on the ownership of a cricket team. He wanted to explain that he didn’t choose the owners, that he only chose to accept an opportunity that could change his family’s trajectory. But he knew, with a weariness that comes too young, that explanations would only fuel more fire.
The Pakistan Cricket Board’s position loomed like a shadow over the celebration. The board may not grant him a No Objection Certificate—the crucial document allowing players to participate in overseas leagues during international commitments. Pakistan’s tour of the West Indies, a two-Test series, carries its own weight. National duty. The green shirt. The expectations of millions.
“It is a lot of money.
Fifty-fifty. Those odds now occupied every quiet moment of Abrar’s days. During meals, his mother asked gentle questions about the West Indies tour, about whether he would miss the money if he stayed home. His father, a retired government clerk who had sacrificed everything for his son’s cricket, said nothing—but his silences spoke volumes.
In Lahore, the PCB chief considered the request that had not yet formally arrived. Abrar was indeed one of the few current players with whom he shared a good relationship. But relationships, in cricket administration, often yield to larger calculations: the integrity of international tours, the precedent set by granting NOCs, the message sent to other players watching closely.
Meanwhile, in London, SunRisers Leeds celebrated their acquisition. The franchise is part of a growing empire: the IPL’s Sunrisers Hyderabad, the SA20’s Sunrisers Eastern Cape, and now this Yorkshire-based team reborn under new ownership. Sun TV had completed its acquisition of the franchise—formerly the Northern Superchargers—for about 100 million pounds, buying 49 percent from the England and Wales Cricket Board and 51 percent from Yorkshire. The investment was massive. The expectations were clear.
For Abrar, the mathematics were simpler but no less daunting. 190,000 pounds could buy his sister’s wedding, his brother’s education, his parents’ peace of mind. But the West Indies tour offered something else—the chance to wear the star and crescent in Test cricket, to spin Pakistan to victory on foreign soil, to add his name to the lineage of great Pakistani spinners.
He thought about his journey: the years of rejection, the coaches who told him he wasn’t good enough, the injuries that nearly ended his career before it began. He thought about the first time he took a wicket in international cricket, the way the crowd roared, the pride in his father’s eyes. He thought about his mother’s prayers, offered five times daily, always ending with the same words: “Keep him safe. Keep him on the right path.”
The right path. Which one was that?
As the days passed and the decision loomed, Abrar found himself returning to the nets more often, losing himself in the familiar rhythm of run-up and release. The ball left his hand, arced through the air, and landed exactly where he intended—a small piece of certainty in a world suddenly full of questions.
His agent called daily with updates, with strategies, with hopes. The PCB chief’s office remained silent, waiting for the formal request. Social media continued its endless debate, each post a reminder that Abrar Ahmed no longer belonged only to himself.
In Karachi, his mother set an extra plate at dinner, a habit she had never broken from the years he was away at cricket academies. His father watched the news with the sound turned low, reading the scrolling ticker for any mention of his son’s name.
And Abrar bowled. Another delivery. Another. The ball turning, always turning, searching for a path that might, somehow, lead in only one direction.