The final players’ list for the Men’s The Hundred 2026 auction is out. The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) released a longlist last month, with 710 players. Franchises were asked to submit a list of 75 to 100 players they were interested in, following which the list was pruned to 247 players.
14 Pakistan cricketers to go under the hammer
Initially, 63 Pakistan cricketers were included. According to ESPNcricinfo, that number has been decreased to 14. They are Haris 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 wasn’t selected for the T20 World Cup 2026, is among 10 marquee players who’ll open the Men’s The Hundred auction on March 12. Rauf has played 12 matches for Welsh Fire from 2023 to 2024, taking 16 wickets. Apart from Rauf, Shaheen, Shadab, and Tariq will be among the first 30 players at the auction in London.
Fascinatingly, the highest scorer of the T20 World Cup, Sahibzada Farhan, hasn’t been shortlisted by a franchise and won’t feature in the auction. Farhan had scored 383 runs in 6 innings, becoming the first batter to register 2 hundreds in a single edition of the tournament. Other major omissions are Salman Ali Agha and Faheem Ashraf.
It’ll be truly interesting to see whether franchises will bid for Pakistani cricketers. Reports have suggested that half of the team, with links to the Indian Premier League (IPL), won’t go after them. Will that happen? And will the remaining teams bid for them? We’ll have to wait and watch.
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
