Sunil Gavaskar has rarely been one for half-measures and, at 76, the former India captain is still prepared to speak his mind. In his latest Mid-Day column he takes aim at Sunrisers Leeds – the newly rebranded Northern Superchargers – for spending £190,000 on Pakistan leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed at last week’s Men’s Hundred auction.
The Headingley outfit is owned by the Chennai-based Sun Group, also proprietors of Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL, and Gavaskar argues the deal crosses a moral line for any Indian-run business while political relations between India and Pakistan remain fraught.
“The furore created by the acquisition of a Pakistani player by the Indian owner of a franchise in The Hundred is hardly surprising,” he wrote. “Ever since the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, Indian franchise owners have simply ignored Pakistani players for the IPL.”
Gavaskar went on: “Although belated, the realisation that the fees that they pay to a Pakistani player, who then pays income tax to his government which buys arms and weapons, indirectly contributes to the deaths of Indian soldiers and civilians is making Indian entities refrain from even considering having Pakistani artistes and sportspersons.”
His column arrives against a febrile backdrop. A brief border flare-up last May pushed the two nuclear neighbours back into global headlines, while cricketing ties remain limited to ICC tournaments or neutral venues. Pakistan cricketers have not appeared in the IPL since its inaugural edition in 2008, and a bilateral series has not happened since 2012-13. Even the pair’s T20 World Cup meeting last year was touch-and-go before settling on neutral Colombo, the pre-match handshake conspicuously dropped.
Within that context, some analysts had speculated about an unofficial “shadow ban” on Pakistan players at the four IPL-linked Hundred franchises. Yet Sunrisers Leeds went ahead with Abrar, the 25-year-old fresh from 104 first-class wickets in just 17 matches and nine Test caps. Daniel Vettori, their head coach, said after the auction he had received no instruction to avoid any nationality.
Gavaskar feels the ownership should have taken a firmer stance. “Whether it is an Indian entity or an overseas subsidiary of the entity that is making the payment, if the owner is Indian then he or she is contributing to the Indian casualties,” he wrote. “It’s as simple as that. There’s still time to undo the wrong and hopefully wiser counsels will prevail.”
Privately, some Hundred officials admit they were braced for a reaction but stress the league’s anti-discrimination code. The ECB reminded all eight teams of this responsibility before the auction after a BBC report predicted the very scenario now unfolding.
For the player himself, it promises an unusual summer. Abrar, who claimed a seven-for on Test debut against England in Multan in 2022, will become only the fourth Pakistani cricketer in the men’s competition. Sources close to the spinner say he is focused on “repaying the faith shown”, though they concede the political layer is impossible to ignore.
So where does this leave Sunrisers Leeds? In pure cricketing terms, they have bolstered a spin attack that struggled last year and now features two mystery options in Abrar and Sri Lanka’s Maheesh Theekshana. On a slower Headingley square during August, this pairing could prove shrewd. But the franchise must also weigh potential commercial ramifications back in India, a key broadcast market.
“Sport should build bridges, not walls,” noted former England captain Michael Atherton on Sky Sports. Yet he added: “Boards and owners operate in real-world geopolitics, and that tension never fully disappears.”
The Hundred starts in late July. Unless Sun Group changes course before then – an unlikely but not impossible scenario given Gavaskar’s influence – Abrar Ahmed will pull on a purple shirt in Leeds. Whether the debate cools by then, or sharpens once he actually takes the field, remains to be seen.
