Delhi: This year is playing the 5th season of England’s The Hundred Tournament, but for this, the player draft (taking the player as per the need of the team as per the need) for this, it was taken in India this time, never before. It is not that the presence of many Indian players in this player draft was the reason for this. The male players (who have not retired) do not play in the foreign professional league under the BCCI policy and Deepti Sharma had sent his name alone among the female cricketers. In this player draft, the biggest reason for interest in India was to see that after changing the ownership of The Handrade tournament, did there be some changes in the way the player takes some changes?
It is a long discussion who chose or who did not choose, but the issue which brought a storm on social media is the selection of any of the 50 players, present in the draft. There was only one voice that this was bound to happen. Prior to the draft, Richard Gold, CEO of England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), said that the arrival of Indian owners would not affect the Pakistani players selected in the teams. This statement was of no use and no one of today’s famous players like Imad Wasim, Hasan Ali, Saud Shakeel, Salman Ali Aga, Nasim Shah and Mohammad Aamir got a contract. Although 4 out of 8 franchisees are linked to the IPL, but the note is that none of the remaining 4 franchisees (although their big investors are of Indian origin) took any of the Pakistan cricketers. Out of the total 270 domestic and 350 foreign cricketers available in the draft, 50 were from Pakistan (45 men +5 female Alia Riyaz, Fatima Sana, Yusra Aamir, Iram Javed and Javaria Rauf). It is not that for all these, all the routes are closed. This year, 8 teams can still add 2-2 players to their squads in the wild card draft of May, for the tournament starting from August 5 this year.
The issue of discussion is whether Pakistani players were deliberately ignored in The Hundred 2025 draft? The common thinking is becoming that the IPL team owner, not only for the IPL, is not choosing Pakistani players for South Africa’s SA20, now with The Handrade. There is a need for the correct analysis of this issue and to know the reason who are responsible for the ignoring of Pakistani players. Therefore, Pakistan Board needs to focus on these reasons, instead of blaming BCCI or IPL team owners:
The Hundred’s program confronts Pakistan’s International Cricket Program: 3-3 ODIs and T20 Internationals are to be played in West Indies from the last week of July to August. There are 3 T20 series from Afghanistan on their pitches and Bangladesh Tour (it is going on). Preparation for the September Asia Cup is also to be made. So there was a conflict with The Hundred Tournament from 5 to 31 August and there is a fear that the Pakistan Board will call its players back to prepare for these matches. This, in the middle of the season, the balance of the team will deteriorate. Why take such players who are not going to play the whole season?
The reputation of Pakistan players in this case is also not very good: In the previous season, Shaheen Shah Afridi said that he wants to spend time with the family, while in those days he took a contract to play in Canada’s Global T20. It is different that the PCB did not give him NOC.
Pakistan’s white ball player at this time, there is no major demand in the T20 League market: This is due to Pakistan’s disappointing performance in the last 3 consecutive ICC tournaments.
PCB’s policy in its NOC case: It is mysterious and nothing clear. The example on which the most infamy was: NOC given to Nasim Shah last year in the last hour, without the need of international duty, canceled. Similarly, 3 and did not give NOC for Canada’s GT20.
Before the player draft of Pakistan Board itself, give the right advice to your players, do not help: British newspapers are writing clearly that most of the draft Pakistan cricketers were ‘very expensive’. In the T20 market, at this time he could not guess its price and the franchise felt that this ‘price’ would not be recovered.
The truth is that no Pakistani has played in SA20 since last 3 seasons, ILT20 and MLC have only 2-2 Pakistani players in the IPL owner’s franchise, while in CPL, 4 Pakistani players played several seasons in an IPL owner’s franchise. Nobody says anything about this.
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