By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: Michael Vaughan, the former England cricket captain, has called on the England and Wales Cricket Board to move swiftly to address reports that Pakistani players are being deliberately overlooked by teams with Indian ownership in The Hundred, the country’s fast-paced domestic short-form tournament.
The concerns, raised in reports by BBC Sport and The Telegraph, center on an upcoming player auction set for March 11-12 in London, where four of the eight franchises in the 100-ball competition are controlled by companies that also own teams in the Indian Premier League.
According to those reports, an “unwritten rule” exists among these IPL-linked teams to avoid selecting players from Pakistan. This development could limit opportunities for Pakistani cricketers in what the ECB has promoted as an inclusive league.
Vaughan, who has long been a vocal commentator on the sport, took to the social media platform X on Friday to express his dismay. Referencing the ECB’s goal of making cricket the most inclusive sport in Britain, he wrote: “The ECB need to act fast on this … they own the league, and this should not be allowed to happen … The most inclusive sport in the country is not one that allows this to happen.”
Adding his voice, current England captain Harry Brook said on Saturday that it would be “a shame” if Pakistani players ended up shut out by those Indian-owned franchises. Speaking ahead of England’s opening Super Eights match against Sri Lanka in Kandy on Sunday, Brook — set to turn out for the Indian-owned Sunrisers Leeds in The Hundred this year — played it straight when asked about the reports.
“Our main focus now is what’s coming up in the T20 World Cup. It’s not really any of our business, to be honest,” Brook said. “But what I would say is Pakistan have been a great cricket nation for many years.” “I think there’s about 50, 60 players in the auction, and it would be a shame to not see some of them in there,” he added. “There’s some amazing cricketers and, yeah, and they bring some great crowds as well. So it would be a shame to not see some of the Pakistan players in there and make the tournament and competition even better.”
The issue stems from longstanding geopolitical tensions between India and Pakistan, which have spilled over into cricket, limiting bilateral matches between the two nations to international tournaments. The rivals recently faced off in Colombo during the T20 World Cup, co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka, but only after Pakistan withdrew a threatened boycott. Such frictions have also resulted in an effective ban on Pakistani players in the IPL, the world’s richest Twenty20 franchise league that draws stars from everywhere else.
Now, with IPL bosses holding stakes in leagues across multiple countries, the ripple effects are becoming more pronounced and Pakistani cricketers are finding fewer doors open. In The Hundred, the four teams with Indian affiliations are Manchester Super Giants, MI London, Southern Brave and Sunrisers Leeds. The BBC reported that a senior ECB official told an agent that interest in Pakistani players would likely be confined to the non-IPL-linked sides.
An ECB spokesman responded: “The Hundred welcomes men’s and women’s players from all over the world and we would expect the eight teams to reflect that.” The Pakistan Cricket Board has yet to issue a statement on the matter.
This is not an isolated case. The BBC calls it a pattern creeping into franchise cricket. In South Africa’s SA20 league, which debuted in 2023 and features six teams all owned by IPL groups—including the four involved in The Hundred—no Pakistani players have participated. Similarly, in the United Arab Emirates’ ILT20, franchises owned by the proprietors of MI London and Southern Brave have fielded players from 15 nationalities over four seasons, but none from Pakistan. In contrast, the American-owned Desert Vipers in the same league have signed eight Pakistani players during that period.
On X, BBC’s Aatif Nawaz, who covers cricket, put it plainly. “There is no merit-based reason for Pakistani players to be excluded from any franchise T20 competition,” Nawaz said. “Call it what it really is: systemic isolation.”
Pakistani players have had a presence in earlier editions of The Hundred. Mohammad Amir and Imad Wasim played in last year’s tournament, the final one before new investors assumed control. In prior seasons, stars like Shaheen Afridi, Shadab Khan and Haris Rauf featured in the men’s competition, though no Pakistanis have appeared in the women’s version.
The ECB sold 49 percent stakes in each of the eight Hundred franchises last year, generating £500 million in private investment that has been funnelled to county clubs and grassroots programs. While the board retains oversight of the competition and has established a new governing body with team representatives, the tournament falls under the purview of an independent cricket regulator. This body was created in response to the 2023 Equity in Cricket report, which documented widespread discrimination in the English game.
The County Cricket Members’ Group, in a statement quoted by the BBC, said that “we expect the relevant county boards and the ECB to hold private partners accountable if there is any reason to believe the non-selection of Pakistan players was a blanket decision based on nationality.”
With the draft just weeks away, this puts a spotlight on how cricket juggles big money with fair play, especially as these leagues cross borders. The ECB has not responded publicly to the reports, but Vaughan’s words have stirred up demands for clear rules so picks come down to skill, not where someone’s from.
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