Sharafu, Ayaan and Rohid shine in ILT20 but playing opportunities remain limited for UAE cricketers

“If you look at what we’re doing in the UAE, we are investing heavily into cricket. We had a fantastic development tournament, 300 players applied for it. From that we had a draft and those players are playing in the league this year. We also in the last year or so invested heavily in school festivals, school’s competitions and in the wider Gulf region,” David White, the CEO of International League T20, in a pre-tournament interview with Wisden in response to SA20 commissioner Graeme Smith, who had criticised the ILT20 for its over-reliance on overseas players.

“Not only do we have very strong top-flight international players, we also have Associate players from Nepal, Malaysia, Scotland, Netherlands, Namibia to say a few.”

While White attributed Smith’s comments to “a lack of research”, there is a grain of truth to both their comments. The league’s quota of two UAE players in the starting XI and four in the wider squad are indeed low.

It means that the majority of the slots are filled with overseas Full Member players with only a handful of domestic and overseas Associates around them.

The introduction of the ‘Impact Player’ rule from last season has further served to limit opportunities for Emirati players. Nevertheless, despite the obstacles, a few Associate and emerging players put in some excellent performances.

Aayan Afzal Khan, Alishan Sharafu and Muhammad Rohid excel

Youngsters Aayan and Sharafu were the pick of the bunch from the Emirati contingent. The 22-year-old Sharafu was the second highest scorer for Abu Dhabi Knight Riders (15th overall), amassing 220 runs at 31.42 and a strike rate of 129. However, it was a different story for his franchise. ADKR struggled badly, conceding the most runs in the league stage and finishing bottom of the table.

On the other hand, the services of talented teenager Aayan were criminally underutilised by Gulf Giants. He only bowled his full contingent of four overs in two of the ten league games and was not bowled at all on three occasions.

Despite this, Aayan took 10 wickets at 10.5. And his fantastic economy rate of 6.17 was the third best in the competition. The highlight was a 4/16 performance against ADKR where Aayan nabbed the wickets of Joe Clarke, Sharafu, Andre Russell and Sunil Narine.

22-year-old Muhammad Rohid was another standout, despite featuring in only five games. The left-arm pacer troubled batters consistently with his skiddy swing bowling, picking up 10 wickets at 14 in the process. While Rohid hasn’t yet made his international debut, he is an exciting prospect who can bring an injection of youth and pace to the ageing UAE pace line-up.

Lastly, Khuzaima Tanveer burst onto the franchise scene with a promising debut season for Desert Vipers. Overall, he took 7 wickets at 25.7. Hailing from Karachi, the 25-year-old pacer only arrived in UAE 16 months ago to seek more cricketing opportunities and to support his family. With Tanveer keen to represent UAE once he fulfils the residency criteria and becomes eligible for national team selection, he’s another bowler that can boost the Emirati pace depth in future.

Veterans and Placeholders

Unfortunately, it was a different story for Emirati veterans Muhammad Waseem and Rohan Mustafa. Waseem wasn’t able to replicate his ILT20 successes over the last two seasons and struggled to make any substantial scores. The opening batter played all ten league games but could only manage 183 runs at 18.30 with a high score of 38. For Mustafa, his returns were even worse. The 36-year-old endured a torrid time with the bat and similarly failed to make an impact with the ball, despite a good economy rate.

Youngsters Tanish Suri and Ali Naseer were selected for six and seven games respectively by Desert Vipers but barely received any opportunities to contribute with the bat. Allrounder Naseer wasn’t trusted to bowl all that much either. It was disappointing to see the duo treated as mere placeholders in the team, to meet the minimum two UAE players in the starting XI criteria.

How did other emerging players fare?

In the wider emerging world, Namibian captain Gerhard Erasmus had a great tournament with the bat, scoring 213 runs at 30.42 for Gulf Giants. His teammate Mark Adair was equally impressive, enjoying a highly successful debut to his franchise cricket career. The Irishman swung the ball consistently through the tournament, collecting 13 wickets at 19.5 and an economy rate of 6.83.

Destructive American batter Andries Gous featured in seven games for ADKR. He had a decent campaign with starts in five off his seven innings. Overall, he accumulated 184 runs at 26.3 and a strike rate of 136.

Quick Takes

Flags a nice touch

One of the nicest things about watching the ILT20 action was seeing the national flag displayed next to player names on the scorecard. It adds a nice touch, distinguishes this league from all the other T20 franchise leagues in operation and helps the tournament live up to its “international” name.

YouTube glitches

While the ability to watch games live on YouTube (outside the subcontinent and Middle East) is fantastic for accessibility, the streams themselves were besieged with audio problems, lags and dropouts at various stages. Additionally, the repetitive Zee TV ads aired at every possible break were quite annoying to sit through. For a league of its calibre, the YouTube streams could definitely do with a lot of improvement.

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