One signing. One auction. One week of chaos that has consumed cricket's biggest talking points — and it still is not over.
On March 12, 2026, Sunrisers Leeds — the Headingley-based Hundred franchise owned by India's Sun Group, the same conglomerate that runs Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL — paid £190,000 (approximately ₹2.34 crore) for Pakistan leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed at the inaugural Men's Hundred auction in London. Six days later, cricket's biggest off-field story is still developing — with a legendary Indian cricketer calling the signing "blood money," a suspended and then restored X account, an Indian board washing its hands of the issue, a Pakistani-origin cricketer fighting back, and a very real question over whether Abrar will even set foot on English soil this summer.
Here is the complete story — from the very beginning to where things stand right now.
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