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The 2026 player auction for The Hundred broke new ground when Kavya Maran’s Sunrisers Leeds snapped up Pakistan’s mystery spinner Abrar Ahmed for a jaw-dropping £190,000, which is about ₹2.34 crore. That move ended years of Pakistani players being unofficially frozen out by Indian-owned teams and really shook up the global T20 scene. But the excitement is already fading. Abrar’s supposed debut at Headingley hangs by a thread: Pakistan’s international fixtures clash with The Hundred, and the PCB’s NOC rules are getting stricter. There’s a real chance Sunrisers Leeds’ big prize won’t even step onto the field this summer.
The Scheduling Conflict: Pakistan Test Tour Of West Indies 2026
Abrar Ahmed faces a tough situation as his national team duties clash directly with The Hundred’s schedule. Pakistan heads to 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 kicks off July 21 and wraps up August 16, which means Abrar needs to be in the Caribbean during most of the tournament’s group stages. Sure, Noman Ali and Sajid Khan are the main spinners for red-ball right now, but Abrar is still an important piece of the squad. Letting him go for a franchise league just isn’t realistic during a World Test Championship window.
The PCB NOC Row And Mohsin Naqvi’s Strict Policy
Besides managing his calendar, Abrar Ahmed also has to comply with the PCB’s more stringent NOC rules. After a string of international failures in 2025, PCB Chairman Mohsin Naqvi introduced a system where the granting of NOC is contingent upon performance-based assessment and managing player workload. The board, on one hand, has not given the nod to big tournaments such as the Global T20 Canada and The Hundred (especially in the case of Naseem Shah) with an aim to hold back the players for Test matches.
Although Abrar’s representative is hopeful as the spinner maintains a good rapport with the board, the insiders confide that the probability of getting an NOC is equal for both sides. For Kavya Maran and head coach Daniel Vettori, the biggest single threat to their 2026 campaign is the absence of a marquee overseas signing who might be blocked by the board.
