Pakistan’s Abrar signed by IPL-linked team at Hundred men’s auction – as it happened
I think we’ll wrap things up there,James Coles hasn’t played for England yet but he’s 21, bowls left-arm tweakers and has eight first-class tons,That promise has resulted in a £390,000 deal with London Spirit, the most expensive of the auction,But the most noteworthy signing remains that of Abrar Ahmed – the Pakistan spinner was picked up by SunRisers Leeds, an IPL-affiliated team, for £190,000,Is the world healing? Probably not, but it’s something.
My opinion about player auctions remains unchanged: it’s all a bit icky and just makes me a little uncomfortable.But this is the new, funky world of English cricket.Thanks for reading and writing in.MI London are very much Surrey in fancy dress – they’ve got six players from the county.After the auction, this is how we look:Birmingham PhoenixJacob Bethell, Rehan Ahmed, Donovan Ferreira, Mitch Owen, Saqib Mahmood, Usman Tariq, Joe Clarke, Will Smeed, Jordan Thompson, Scott Currie, Laurie Evans, Chris Wood, Ethan Brookes, Mustafizur RahmanLondon SpiritLiam Livingstone, Jamie Overton, Adam Zampa, Dewald Brevis, Jonny Bairstow, David Willey, James Coles, Mason Crane, Adam Milne, Adam Hose, Tymal Mills, James Rew, Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Matt FisherManchester Super GiantsJos Buttler, Heinrich Klaasen, Noor Ahmad, Liam Dawson, Aiden Markram, Josh Tongue, Sonny Baker, Gus Atkinson, Leus Du Plooy, Tom Hartley, Tim Seifert, Tom Moores, Max Holden, George Scrimshaw, Tawanda Muyeye, Paul WalterMI LondonSam Curran, Will Jacks, Nicholas Pooran, Rashid Khan, James Vince, Tom Curran, Trent Boult, Nathan Sowter, Sherfane Rutherford, Richard Gleeson, Ollie Pope, Olly Stone, Ollie Sykes, Callum Parkinson, Jason RoySouthern BraveJofra Archer, Jamie Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Tristan Stubbs, Adil Rashid, David Miller, Chris Jordan, Luke Wood, Ben McKinney, Thomas Rew, Michael Pepper, Tom Abell, Dan Worrall, Nikhil Chaudhary, Caleb FalconerSunrisers LeedsHarry Brook, Mitchell Marsh, Nathan Ellis, Brydon Carse, Ryan Rickelton, Zak Crawley, Matt Potts, Dan Lawrence, Abrar Ahmed, Benny Howell, Tom Lawes, Tom Alsop, Liam Patterson-White, Reece Topley, Ed BarnardTrent RocketsTim David, Tom Banton, Ben Duckett, Mitch Santner, Finn Allen, David Payne, Lewis Gregory, Craig Overton, Dan Mousley, Matt Henry, Sam Billings, Aneurin Donald, Ben Mayes, Danny Briggs, Brad Currie, Louis KimberWelsh FirePhil Salt, Marco Jansen, Rachin Ravindra, Chris Woakes, Joe Root, Jordan Cox, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Ben Kellaway, Lockie Ferguson, Asa Tribe, Tom Aspinwall, Matt Short, Sam Cook, Jafer ChohanAnd that’s that – we’re done.
A proper shift from Richard Madley finally wraps up.Brad Currie and Louis Kimber join Trent Rockets … and Jason Roy is back in the mix.The Surrey man gets a gig at MI London.We’re close to wrapping up here: Matt Fisher is off to London Spirit, Paul Walter joins Manchester Super Giants.Callum Parkinson will play for MI London.
Ed Barnard heads to Headingley,This is a surprise: Southern Brave nominate Nikhil Chaudhary, an uncapped overseas player who has done most of his work in the BBL,They get him for £31k,Caleb Falconer is wanted by London Spirit and Southern Brave … and the Brave get him for £55k,He’s yet to play a game of professional cricket.
MI London nominate Surrey’s Ollie Sykes, and he’s signed for £31k.Justin Langer, from the Manchester Super Giants table, calls for George Scrimshaw.He gets him, too.Birmingham Phoenix fill out their last overseas spot with Bangladesh’s Mustafizur Rahman.The Fizz goes for £100k.
SunRisers Leeds nominate Reece Topley and are unchallenged, the left-armer on his way for £31k,Jafer Chohan has gone unsold twice today … but Welsh Fire nominate him,They sign him for £35k,The Rockets nominate Sam Cook, who went unsold earlier in the day,He’s in demand now as the price flies to £70k – Welsh Fire take him.
They’ve got Cook, Chris Woakes and Marco Jansen as new-ball options,Trent Rockets and MI Oval London fight it out for T20 Blast legend Danny Briggs,Rockets buy him for £70k,Liam Patterson-White, the Notts all-rounder, joins SunRisers for £31k,Welsh Fire fill their last overseas spot with Australia’s Matt Short.
I watched him take a very sneaky five-for at Sophia Gardens against England in 2024.MI London nominate England quick Olly Stone and sign him for £50k.Birmingham Phoenix name Worcestershire’s Ethan Brookes for £31k, but he becomes part of a bidding war – they end up buying him for £70k.Daniel Worrall is a wanted man, his price rocketing to £80k after he was nominated by Super Giants.Southern Brave end up signing him.
London Spirit bid for South Africa’s Lhuan-dre Pretorius, 19 years old but already a Test centurion.They sign him for £31k.Now it’s the round for nominated players.Teams name a player and sign them if no other side makes a bid.Southern Brave call out for Tom Abell … and no one else bids.
He’s off to Southampton.Harry Chapman writes in:double quotation markFollowing the blog from Massachusetts - just wondering why Guardian cricket writer Geoff Lemon is on The Sunrisers Leeds table at the top the blog!?!Geoff actually used to bowl some very tidy left-arm spin for New Zealand.Could bat a bit, too.Ben Mayes, the England Under-19s batter, has played just three T20s but Trent Rockets don’t mind – they buy him for £31k.James Rew, older brother of Thomas, joins London Spirit for the same fee.
Caleb Falconer goes unsold.Graham Clark goes unsold before Aneurin Donald joins Trent Rockets for £31k.Tom Aspinwall moves to Welsh Fire for the same fee.Matthew Fisher, a Test cap to his name, does not find a buyer.Alec Stewart and co decide to bring Ollie Pope home to the Oval.
He receives a bid of £31k from MI London and it’s uncontested,Hampshire veteran Chris Wood is off to Birmingham Phoenix … who he’s played for since 2024,Tawanda Muyeye will play for Manchester Originals Super Giants, signed for £50k,Essex’s Paul Walter does not receive any bids,Michael Pepper is off to Southern Brave for £31k, while Manchester Super Giants buy Max Holden for the same fee.
Left-arm quick Tymal Mills joins London Spirit for £130k.Laurie Evans, another experienced T20 globetrotter, is bought by Birmingham Phoenix for £85k.Australian quicks Xavier Bartlett and Jason Behrendorff go unsold.Asa Tribe – of Jersey, Glamorgan and England Lions – and Welsh Fire, too.He joins for £70k.
Sam Billings, who captained Oval Invincibles, sees his fee jump to six figures as Trent Rockets and Birmingham Phoenix battle.He faced just 35 balls across seven innings in last year’s tournament.The Rockets buy the keeper-batter for £180k.New Zealand’s Matt Henry – I absolutely love his action – is up, and there’s a bit of confusion over what his base price is.It’s confirmed as £75k and the Rockets, predictably, raise their paddle.
And they’ve got him: that’s their third New Zealander in the squad,Trent Rockets still have £522k to spend with a minimum of five more players to buy today,They’ve got one overseas spot to fill and they’re looking a touch short with the ball, needing a bit more pace and probably another frontline spinner to join up with Mitch Santner,Dawid Malan and Anrich Nortje do not find any suitors,Keaton Jennings goes unsold, as does Jafer Chohan, who was in the first round of the auction.
Toby Albert and Zimbabwe’s Sikandar Raza do not receive bids.Jason Roy, a hero of 2019, does not receive a bid for a base price of £31k.Sam Cook has an excellent record in the Hundred – but he goes unsold at £31k.Adam Hose is off to London Spirit.Scott Currie took nine wickets at 19.
66 last year for Manchester Originals and his fee races to £100k … the 24-year-old seamer is in demand and Trent Rockets take it to £200k,Birmingham Phoenix are quite light on fast bowling so they go to £210k – and they’ve got him,Richard Gleeson, who played a handful of T20s for England in 2022, has paddles from MI London and Welsh Fire go up,The 38-year-old quick is off to the Oval for £65k,Dan Mousley, an all-rounder who bowls rapid off-breaks, receives a bid of £31k from Trent Rockets.
They eventually sign him for £40k,West Indies’ Sherfane Rutherford gets a £100k bid from MI London – they’ve got their four overseas slots sorted,New Zealand’s Lockie Ferguson is off to Welsh Fire for £75k,Faf du Plessis, still knocking it about at 41, goes unsold at £100k,SunRisers Leeds and Manchester Super Giants have filled their overseas allocations.
Welsh Fire still have two slots to fill from abroad, having spent big money on their domestic stars.Wanindu Hasaranga, the leg-spinning allrounder from Sri Lanka, goes unsold at £100k.Lungi Ngidi does not receive a bid either.Adam Milne, the New Zealand quick, does get a deal, going to London Spirit for £50k.Glamorgan’s Ben Kellaway is staying at Welsh Fire for £37.
5k, and here comes Thomas Rew, who captained England Under-19s at their recent World Cup.He’s played just three T20s for Somerset and hasn’t played in the County Championship but carries Big Next Thing energy – and the paddles are starting to fly.The 18-year-old is heading to Southern Brave for £80k.Tom Alsop joins SunRisers, too.They’ve signed 12 players and have £101k left in their wallet.
Dan Worrall, the Surrey opening bowler – he’s got a delicious outswinger – goes unsold.Tom Moores, keeper-batter, is off to Manchester Super Giants for £50k.Another Surrey quick, Tom Lawes, joins SunRisers for £40k.
Sussex therapist who claimed he could heal trauma with sex jailed for 11 years
A therapist who claimed he could heal birth trauma through sexual touching and oral sex has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.Gerald Peck, who has live profiles promoting his work as a bodywork psychotherapist, was convicted of five sexual offences on 2 February, after being charged in October 2024.Handing down the sentence at Lewes cown court on Thursday, Judge Mooney said: “The young woman who came to see you believed you could help her at a particularly difficult time in her life. She had every reason to believe she could trust you.“All the information you provided to her led her to believe you were a qualified bioenergetics practitioner
Life with my autistic sons: ‘How do you explain all the worries, the sleepless nights?’
When James Hunt began posting about his boys online, it was a way to describe the emotions and experiences of their extraordinary lives. In sharing his family’s joy and struggles, he realised they weren’t aloneMy conversation with James Hunt begins the usual way: an exchange of hellos, followed by the most mundane of questions. “How are you?” I ask.Although he responds predictably – “I’m all right … I’m good” – we both know that underneath this answer lurks a whole world of experience, and the plain fact that some people’s everyday lives are lived in extraordinary circumstances.Six months ago, this fortysomething father was leading the kind of life that might have caused plenty of people to break into small emotional pieces
Proposed law change will protect abusive men who push women to suicide, campaigners warn
Men whose abusive behaviour drives women to take their own lives are more likely to get away with their crimes because of proposed law changes, justice campaigners say.Ministers want to make it harder for inquests to pass verdicts of unlawful killing, which have been crucial in getting justice for women who killed themselves after suffering abuse.In October last year, Georgia Barter was found to have been unlawfully killed after suffering a decade of domestic violence and abuse. In 2023, an inquest found that Kellie Sutton, whose death was classed originally as a suicide, was unlawfully killed after suffering domestic abuse.The unlawful killing verdicts followed campaigns by the families of the women
Women receiving worse treatment for back and neck pain – UK study
Women are receiving worse treatment for back and neck pain because their experiences are not factored into “male by default” clinical guidelines in the UK, research has found.The NHS fails to acknowledge sex-specific considerations such as pain being more common among women in its model of care for non-surgical management of chronic neck and back pain, according to research from the University of Lancashire.Lower back pain affects more than 600 million people worldwide, the World Health Organization states. Back pain costs the NHS billions of pounds each year and chronic pain accounts for millions of GP appointments annually, while musculoskeletal disorders remain one of the leading causes of work absence in the UK.A major review of clinical guidance, published in the Physical Therapy Reviews journal, found that by consistently only referring to people, individuals or patients, clinical guidance in the UK ignores the role women’s different skeleton size, hormones, experience of pregnancy or menopause can play in musculoskeletal pain
For many of us, the Covid pandemic still isn’t over | Brief letters
I was surprised to see that your article (The Covid-19 inquiry is sounding a clear warning. If it’s not heeded, yet more lives will be lost, 5 March) speaks of those who suffered during the pandemic in the past tense, and does not mention the hundreds of thousands, like myself, who still suffer from long Covid. It is a devastating condition that is too often forgotten when the pandemic is discussed. Meanwhile, long Covid clinics are underfunded and many have closed. To many, the pandemic must feel like a nightmare that is thankfully in the past
UK companies struggling to hire young people amid cost pressures, MPs told
British companies are struggling to afford to hire young people after a long period of rising costs that have hit profit margins and derailed recruitment plans, business leaders say.Rising labour costs including increases to the minimum wage and employer’s national insurance by the government have put young people at the back of the queue when employers consider recruitment, business lobby groups told MPs.They added that the Employment Rights Act threatened to make the situation worse if it discouraged employers “from taking the risk” of hiring young people with fewer skills, or without a long track record in the workplace.The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) expects the unemployment rate to rise to 5.5% this year and said young people would be “disproportionately affected”
Keeping it simple was always the answer for John Lewis | Nils Pratley
Watchdog puts UK fuel retailers ‘on notice’ over profiteering from Iran war
Google’s former Europe boss close to becoming next head of BBC, sources say
Lincolnshire council approves AI datacentre despite emissions warnings
‘There’s no crack’: Itoje says spat with ‘good guy’ Fin Smith shows England’s harmony
Pakistan’s Abrar Ahmed defies talk of ‘shadow ban’ with Sunrisers deal in Hundred