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.
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.
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.
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
Women’s Hundred longlist – first 35 players
Marquee domestic: Dani Gibson, Sarah Glenn, Amy Jones, Tammy Beaumont, Davina Perrin
Marquee international: Nadine de Klerk, Sophie Devine, Beth Mooney, Sophie Molineux, Deepti Sharma
Tier 1 batters: Stars Kalis, Lizelle Lee, Bryony Smith, Tazmin Brits, Emma Lamb
Tier 1 fast bowlers: Issy Wong, Grace Ballinger, Shabnim Ismail, Maitlan Brown, Lauren Cheatle
Tier 1 allrounders: Deandra Dottin, Jessica Jonassen, Georgia Adams, Kathryn Bryce, Chinelle Henry
Tier 1 spin bowlers: Linsey Smith, Alana King, Tilly Corteen-Coleman, Kirstie Gordon, Sophia Smale
Tier 1 wicketkeepers: Richa Ghosh, Lauren Winfield-Hill, Yastika Bhatia, Georgia Redmayne, Seren Smale
