diplomatic tensions<\/a> between the two nations.<\/p>\nThere was speculation that the Pakistan players involved in this week\u2019s inaugural Hundred auction in London would be subject to a \u201cshadow ban\u201d, with the IPL-affiliated teams refusing to bid for them.<\/p>\n
Four of the franchises \u2013 MI London, Manchester Super Giants, Sunrisers Leeds and Southern Brave \u2013 are at least part-owned by companies that control IPL teams.<\/p>\n
But the Sunrisers, based in the northern English city of Leeds, clinched a deal for Pakistani leg-spinner Abrar, paying 190,000 pounds ($252,000) for his services.<\/p>\n
A post announcing Abrar\u2019s signing was met with thousands of replies angrily questioning the patriotism of the Indian owners.<\/p>\n
Some highlighted that Abrar had mocked India on social media after the conflict between the two countries in May 2025, and had called for fans to boycott IPL side Sunrisers Hyderabad.<\/p>\n
Usman Tariq, the only other Pakistani player bought in the auction, was picked up by the United States-backed Birmingham Phoenix.<\/p>\n
The only two Pakistan players in Wednesday\u2019s women\u2019s auction, Fatima Sana and Sadia Iqbal, went unsold.<\/p>\n
The England and Wales Cricket Board last month issued a statement saying all eight of the city-based franchises in the 100-ball-a-side competition were committed to selection based solely on performances.<\/p>\n
But Sunrisers have been subject to fierce criticism from some Indian cricket fans after signing Ahmed.<\/p>\n
The @SunrisersLeeds account on X was suspended on Thursday. It was up and running again on Friday with a new follower base, but comments again focused heavily on Abrar\u2019s signing.<\/p>\n
The same was true of the club\u2019s Instagram feed, while the issue spilled over onto the accounts of Sunrisers Hyderabad, also owned by the Sun Group media conglomerate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Post announcing Abrar\u2019s signing was met with thousands angrily questioning patriotism of the Indian owners. Listen to this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[1724,64,63,740,2057,1209,44,15299,588,85,3586],"class_list":["post-539616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-europe","tag-india","tag-news","tag-pakistan","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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