Sunrisers Leeds' Abrar Ahmed: Why did Sunrisers Leeds bid for Pakistani player Abrar Ahmed? Team coach Daniel Vettori has revealed the reason.

Why did SRH buy Abrar Ahmed?

Abrar Ahmed News: The Sunrisers Hyderabad franchise, which acquired Pakistani player Abrar Ahmed in The Hundred League auction, is under scrutiny. The Sunrisers Leeds team bid ₹2.34 crore for Abrar Ahmed. This has sparked a social media uproar, with Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kavya Maran in particular being heavily trolled. Now, Sunrisers Leeds head coach Daniel Vettori has revealed why his team acquired the Pakistani player.

Sunrisers Leeds is owned by the Sun TV network, which also owns the IPL team Sunrisers Hyderabad. Abrar Ahmed became the first player to be bought by an Indian franchise in The Hundred League.

Why did you buy a Pakistani player?

After the auction, coach Daniel Vettori said that since he could not buy Adil Rashid, he had to target another leg-spinner.

He said, "Our priority was to buy Adil Rashid, but that could not happen. Because of this, we looked for options for foreign spinners. We were looking at 4-5 players, and Abrar was one of them. We were very happy to have him in the squad."

There is no discussion on buying Pakistani players.

Daniel Vettori also revealed that there was no discussion within the management about the team not purchasing any Pakistani players. Previous reports had suggested that IPL teams would ignore Pakistani players in the auction. Before finalizing Abrar Ahmed, SRH Leeds also considered acquiring another Pakistani bowler, Usman Tariq, and Bangladeshi spinner Rishad Hussain. In his international T20 career, he has taken 52 wickets in 38 matches.