Peak Lynnsanity and an 'octopus in a hurricane'... The best bits of the 2019 Abu Dhabi T10 League

After Dwayne Bravo and his Maratha Arabians finally lifted the tournament trophy at the third time of asking, XAVIER VOIGT-HILL looks back at the highlights of the latest edition of the UAE's signature quickfire competition

One for the T10 purists

Sixteen teams have made at least a fleeting appearance since the T10 League burst into the world in Sharjah in 2017, but only Dwayne Bravo and his Maratha Arabians outfit can claim to have been there since the very beginning. As such, their dominant performances throughout the tournament and particularly in front of a crowd of over 20,000 for yesterday's final – where Bravo's 2-16 helped restrict Deccan Gladiators to 87, the lowest first-innings total since the competition moved to Abu Dhabi's Zayed Cricket Stadium – are about as much a victory for traditionalists as is possible in such a nascent league and format.

Where the Arabians' squad depth had a real opportunity to shine came with the ball in hand. While veteran yorker merchant Lasith Malinga only managed three wickets in his eight games, his economy rate of 7.92 was the most frugal of any bowler to send down more than 40 balls, and his longtime Mumbai Indians teammate Mitch McClenaghan served as a similarly miserly partner at the top of the innings. 

With Bravo expensive but effective (leading the side with eight wickets at 20.25) and uncapped local left-armer Shiraz Ahmed hailed as "pivotal" by coach Andy Flower after matching Malinga's tournament figures mere weeks after leaving his shop job to give cricket (and air conditioning) a real shot, the Maratha pace attack set the tone for continued success in a format where games are all too often defined by one fearless slogger seizing control of play.

Lynnsanity

That said, the Arabians weren't exactly found wanting in the slogging department, as opener Chris Lynn was the only real option for both batsman and player of the tournament after reaching four half-centuries in his eight innings.

Though the Australian has long boasted a formidable reputation as one of the cleanest strikers in the short-form game, his first official venture into the T10 format was one to remember, including the two highest individual knocks since the tournament's inception in 2017. His tally of 371 runs was scored from just 157 deliveries and dwarfed his rivals – only Shane Watson, Rilee Rossouw and Luke Wright also passed 200, and Adam Lyth was the only one of his teammates to even muster triple figures across the Arabians' eight outings.

^{Chris Lynn's unbeaten 91 against Team Abu Dhabi was the highest score in the T10 League's three-year history}

Next closest was sometime West Indies wicketkeeper Chadwick Walton, who made the most of being promoted to open in the final with an unbeaten 51 as Maratha reached their target with 16 of the innings' 60 balls going spare. After struggling in and around the middle order, scoring just 43 in his previous six innings combined, Walton's promotion came at the expense of the young Afghan batsman Hazratullah Zazai, who could only manage a top score of 14 after The Cricketer had tipped him to be in with a chance of becoming the league's maiden centurion.

Qalandar Qounty Qricket Qlub

A late decision from the Pakistan Cricket Board to rescind permission for their players to take part in this year's T10 League sent virtually every side scrambling to reassemble their squads at the last minute, but no side was rocked quite as significantly as the debuting Qalandars. The team is an offshoot of Lahore's Pakistan Super League franchise and looked very much like it too, with Shahid Afridi recruited as an icon player and the likes of international regulars Mohammad Hafeez, Imad Wasim and Faheem Ashraf initially set to form the core of the side.

Instead, it was a motley crew plucked mostly from the county circuit that ended up stepping in to don the lime green and spread the 'Main Hoon Qalandar' mantra across social media. Just hours before Indian cinema megastar Mammootty launched the competition with a glitzy ceremony at the Zayed Cricket Stadium, Dawid Malan jetted in from England's T20 tour of New Zealand to replace Sohail Akhtar as captain of a makeshift squad now bolstered by the likes of Laurie Evans, Peter Trego, Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Samit Patel.

^{George Garton led the league in wickets over two years since his last T20 appearance for Sussex}

It was a pair of 22-year-old seamers that stood out, though, with Sussex left-armer George Garton and Sri Lanka regular Lahiru Kumara the only two bowlers in this year's competition to claim more than 10 wickets apiece. Garton's return was perhaps the most noteworthy, leading all bowlers with 12 wickets in 16 overs on his way to the bowler of the tournament gong, despite not featuring in his county's Blast side in over two years. 

However, results were thoroughly inconsistent at best: the tournament's opening three days featured a tie, a 66-run win and a 47-run loss, and stumbles in chases saw them narrowly fall short on two separate opportunities to qualify for the final on the penultimate day. Results could have been rather different if not for injury to England newbie Tom Banton, who was one of just four actual Qalandars draft picks to actually feature in the tournament,alongside Luke Ronchi and Sussex pair Chris Jordan and Phil Salt – an astonishing 28-ball 80 against Karnataka Tuskers in the penultimate group stage fixture turned out to be the second and final half-century for both the Somerset youngster and the team as a whole.

Watch highlights of an unbelievable Tom Banton innings! 🔥

8️⃣0️⃣ runs
2️⃣8️⃣ balls
9️⃣ fours
6️⃣ sixes

🎥 @T10League #WeAreSomerset @TomBanton18 pic.twitter.com/FOaurNaBxL

— Somerset Cricket 🏏 (@SomersetCCC) November 25, 2019

It never rains in Abu Dhabi...

November 20 may well go down as one of the most peculiar days of the cricketing year, as just one of the T10 League's three fixtures was actually played to completion. To start the day, there were at least mitigating circumstances – it started to rain shortly before the Tuskers were due to start their chase of Maratha's Lynn-led 129 for 4, and the back-to-back-to-back nature of each day's schedule at the Zayed Cricket Stadium ensured that even the minimum five overs would not be possible before the second game of the day was due to commence.

Things started veering towards the farcical later that evening, however, as the home side Team Abu Dhabi found themselves needing to defend a total of 118 for 4 under lights against Deccan Gladiators in order to maintain any realistic chance of hanging around for the playoff weekend. After one very brief rain delay came a second 2.2 overs in, with Deccan one down and opener Mohammad Shahzad responsible for all but one of the 25 runs his team had put on the board.

That was where the game was left, however – despite the rain easing off as swiftly as it had arrived and the sides returning to the pitch to get on with things a mere 16 minutes after they had departed, an apparent issue in printing the relevant Duckworth-Lewis-Stern calculations left spectators, commentators and even the teams and officials baffled as the match referee called the game off after several minutes of boundary-edge discussion. Tournament organisers later issued a statement confirming that a five-over DLS-adjusted target had been set, however the relevant "supporting documentation" was "not immediately available".

The spin twins

Bangla Tigers – not to be confused with the Bengal Tigers side of T10 Leagues past – proceeded through the competition rather quietly, sneaking through to the playoffs in the final spot and ultimately making the most of Qalandars' downward trajectory to seal the bronze medal, however a pair of viral moments made cult heroes out of their legspin arsenal.

First, there was Kevin Koththiigoda, a 21-year-old from Galle with just 14 professional wickets under his belt ahead of the tournament. Ostensibly, he's a right-arm Paul Adams, contorting his body such that his head faces square leg in the moment he catapults the ball from behind his back. Where Adams earned the frog in a blender moniker, one newspaper went as far as describing Koththiigoda as an octopus in a hurricane. Either way, the results were none too shabby, seeing off four international cricketers at a fairly respectable economy of 11.09 per over.

^{Kevin Koththiigoda's unorthodox approach to leg-spin spread wildly online}

Qais Ahmad, however, was undoubtedly the pick of the spinners throughout the tournament, leading the way with nine wickets and some truly compelling variations. The 19-year-old has just one cap for Afghanistan to date and ended up as one of the more obscure picks in last month's draft for The Hundred, but felling the Northern Warriors' top-scorer and T20 icon Andre Russell with a devilish bouncer (ably handled by wicketkeeper Tom Moores) certainly did his reputation no harm whatsoever.

The brevity of the T10 format naturally lends itself to big-hitting batsmen not fearing for their wickets, however Ahmad not only managed to concede just 9.15 runs per over but he did so with a wicket every 8.6 deliveries. Amongst bowlers to have sent down at least six overs and taken at least six wickets, just the Qalandars pace duo of Jordan Clark and George Garton bettered Ahmad's economy, and Nepal's Sandeep Lamichhane – the only other spinner to make the top 10 in that particular statistic – instead went a dash under two runs per ball.

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