Matt Roller

CloseMatt Roller is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets at @mroller98

Multiple Authors

Mar 3, 2026, 03:14 AM

Haris Rauf is among the 10 marquee players whose names will be called out first at next week’s inaugural men’s Hundred auction, with 14 Pakistan players on the longlist for bids.

The ECB and the eight franchises released a joint statement last week committing to selection being based on “performance, availability, and the needs of each team”. It came in response to a report from the BBC that the four teams who are part or fully owned by IPL franchises would enforce a “shadow ban” on Pakistani players, refusing to bid for them for geopolitical reasons.

The men’s longlist released by the ECB last month featured 63 Pakistani players among the 710 names who registered for the auction, and teams were asked to submit a list of around 75-100 players that they were most interested in signing by the end of last week.

Editor’s Picks

2 Related

The longlist was then trimmed to 243 men’s players, and has since been circulated to teams and seen by ESPNcricinfo. It includes 14 Pakistan players: Rauf, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shadab Khan, Usman Tariq, Saim Ayub, Abrar Ahmed, Mohammad Nawaz, Naseem Shah, Mohammad Amir, Zaman Khan, Usama Mir, Imad Wasim, Akif Javed and Salman Mirza.

Rauf, who was left out of Pakistan’s World Cup squad, is among 10 marquee players whose lots will open the men’s auction on March 12. Jonny Bairstow, Adil Rashid, James Vince, Jordan Cox and Joe Root are the five domestic marquee players, while Aiden Markram, David Miller, Sunil Narine, Daryl Mitchell and Rauf are the marquee overseas players.

Rauf is one of nine Pakistan players who have previously featured in the Hundred, taking 16 wickets across his two seasons with Welsh Fire. He was also the leading wicket-taker at the recent Big Bash League, where he played under new Trent Rockets coach Peter Moores at Melbourne Stars.

Pakistan are due to tour the Caribbean for a Test series against West Indies during the Hundred’s window next summer, but their white-ball specialists should be fully available, pending the granting of No-Objection Certificates by the PCB. The latter stages of the Hundred also overlap with the start of the CPL.

Hundred men’s marquee list ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Sahibzada Farhan, who said last week that he was “hopeful” of being picked up at the auction, is a notable omission from the trimmed longlist. Farhan, 29, is the leading run-scorer at the ongoing T20 World Cup, having scored centuries against Namibia and Sri Lanka, though has only once played in an overseas franchise league.

The Hundred will run from July 21 until August 16 this year, with private investors involved in the tournament for the first time after the lucrative sale of shares in teams last year. Three teams have been renamed due to IPL links: MI London (Oval Invincibles), Sunrisers Leeds (Northern Superchargers) and Manchester Super Giants (Manchester Originals).

There will be scrutiny on whether the four teams with Indian owners – the three above, plus Southern Brave – bid for any Pakistani players next week following widespread condemnation of a potential “shadow ban” across English cricket, including from former Test captains Michael Atherton and Michael Vaughan.

There are also two Pakistan players on the women’s longlist: allrounder Fatima Sana and left-arm spinner Sadia Iqbal. No Pakistan players featured across the first five seasons of the women’s Hundred.

Ben Stokes, England’s Test captain, did not register for the auction. He worked as a mentor at Northern Superchargers last summer and will instead focus on his preparation for England’s Test series against Pakistan, which starts three days after the Hundred final. Moeen Ali, who reversed his decision on retiring from English domestic cricket to sign for Yorkshire in the Blast, was absent from the longlist.

The auctions will be held in Piccadilly, London next week on March 11 (women’s) and 12 (men’s). The women’s longlist has also been circulated to teams. The 10 marquee names in the women’s auction are: Dani Gibson, Sarah Glenn, Amy Jones, Tammy Beaumont, Davina Perrin, Nadine de Klerk, Sophie Devine, Beth Mooney, Sophie Molineux and Deepti Sharma.

Men’s Hundred longlist – first 30 players

Marquee domestic: Jonny Bairstow, Adil Rashid, James Vince, Jordan Cox, Joe Root
Marquee international: Aiden Markram, David Miller, Sunil Narine, Haris Rauf, Daryl Mitchell
Tier 1 batters: Finn Allen, Quinton De Kock, Ryan Rickelton, Tim Seifert, Zak Crawley
Tier 1 fast bowlers: Shaheen Shah Afridi, Josh Tongue, Luke Wood, Sonny Baker, Saqib Mahmood
Tier 1 allrounders: Tom Curran, Shadab Khan, Azmatullah Omarzai, David Willey, Gus Atkinson
Tier 1 spin bowlers: Akeal Hosein, AM Ghazanfar, Rishad Hossain, Usman Tariq, Jafer Chohan