Pakistan’s national selection committee announced their Test squad for the West Indies tour today. Abrar Ahmed is not in it. The £190,000 Sunrisers Leeds deal that generated weeks of political controversy is now safe.
The 16-member squad, confirmed at a press conference at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore this afternoon, is led by Babar Azam, who returns as Test captain. Sajid Khan is the specialist spinner named for the West Indies conditions. Abrar, the mystery leg-spinner whose signing at the inaugural Hundred auction triggered a political firestorm, was not selected.
The signing had been anything but quiet. In March 2026, after missing out on Adil Rashid, who went to Southern Brave, head coach Daniel Vettori won a bidding war with Trent Rockets and signed Abrar Ahmed for £190,000. It was the first time an Indian-owned team had signed a Pakistani cricketer since the IPL shut its doors to Pakistan players in 2009. The signing drew immediate backlash in India. Sunrisers’ X account was suspended within hours. Sunil Gavaskar argued in his Mid-Day column that paying a Pakistani player indirectly contributes to Indian casualties.
“Once we missed out on Adil Rashid, who was a priority early on, then we obviously jumped into the overseas spinner. There were four or five guys that we were looking at and Abrar was one of them.”
Daniel Vettori, head coach Sunrisers Leeds, post-auction press conference, March 13, 2026
View this post on Instagram
The backlash had barely settled when the scheduling problem surfaced. Pakistan’s West Indies tour overlaps almost entirely with The Hundred’s opening run. The Hundred begins July 21. The first Test starts July 25 at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Trinidad. A source told the Times of India in March:
“He might not play The Hundred, given the fact that Pakistan is playing a two-match Test series against West Indies. It is a lot of money. His agent has put his name in the auction, which means he is confident of getting the NOC. He is also among the few current Pakistani cricketers who have a good relationship with the PCB chief. The chances of him playing in The Hundred are 50-50.”
Source, Times of India, March 14, 2026
An NOC is the No Objection Certificate a player needs from the Pakistan Cricket Board to participate in overseas leagues.
Those odds are now moot. Pakistan’s selectors looked at their spinner options, chose Sajid Khan for the West Indies tour, and moved on. The scheduling conflict everyone spent weeks arguing about never arrived.
Insider Read:
Every outlet covering this story over the past month started from the same assumption: if Pakistan selected Abrar, there would be a conflict. The debate was entirely about what would happen after the selection. Nobody questioned whether the selection would happen at all.
The right starting point was the selection table. At the selection table, the question was never about the Hundred deal, the backlash, or the ECB’s intervention. The question was simpler: between Sajid Khan and Abrar Ahmed, who do we take as our specialist spinner to the West Indies? Pakistan’s selectors answered that on cricket grounds and moved on.
Abrar’s last Test was against the West Indies in Multan in January 2025. He took two wickets in that match. Sajid Khan offers a different shape as an off-spinner and is in stronger red-ball form. Trinidad pitches have historically assisted off-spin more than leg-spin as a Test series progresses. That is the cricket logic. The £190,000 price tag at the Hundred auction had no entry point into that calculation.
Whether the controversy quietly influenced the selectors to sidestep Abrar entirely, or whether Sajid Khan was simply the better cricket choice, is something only the selection room knows. What the squad tells you is that the weeks of political noise produced no visible effect in either direction.
Abrar Ahmed will play in The Hundred. He will wear Sunrisers Leeds’ colours at Headingley. The franchise cricket experiment that generated so much political heat in India will now actually happen, with Pakistan playing their first Test in Trinidad on the same day.
Abrar Ahmed has not made a public statement on this matter.
Sources
- Pakistan Test squad announced for West Indies and England tours PCB, July 5, 2026
- Pakistan squad confirmed, Babar Azam returns as captain CricketAddictor, July 5, 2026
- Sunrisers Leeds sign Abrar Ahmed, India backlash Al Jazeera, March 14, 2026
- Gavaskar links Sunrisers signing to Indian deaths Al Jazeera, March 17, 2026
- Vettori explains Abrar Ahmed signing GeoSuper, March 13, 2026
- West Indies Tests vs Hundred clash Times of India, March 14, 2026
- Abrar Ahmed dilemma Circle of Cricket
