T20 competitions giving local players chance to shine alongside cricket’s established stars

There is so much cricket being played professionally and internationally at the moment that one of the International Cricket Council’s objectives to grow the game worldwide is coming to fruition. Opportunities to play on a world stage are now afforded to players who could only have dreamed about it a few years ago.

This is true for the UAE men cricketers who are playing in the DPO World ILT20. Each of the six teams have four UAE players allocated to them, of whom two must be selected for the playing 11. The experience that they gain from playing alongside some of the world’s best cricketers will be invaluable for their development.

Rohan Mustafa has been opening the batting for Desert Vipers alongside Englishman Alex Hales, watching him score 418 runs in five matches, almost twice as many as anyone else.

Mustafa is an experienced cricketer at 33 years of age and may not have that much to learn compared with Vriitya Aravind, who is 20 years old and playing for the MI Emirates along with Muhammad Waseem. The latter started brightly with scores of 71 and 40 in his first two innings but posted low scores in his next three innings. Aravind has made only one start so far.

There have been creditable bowling performances by UAE players. Akif Raja has played in all five matches for Dubai Capitals, claiming six wickets, including one with his second delivery of the tournament.

Junaid Siddique has played five matches for Sharjah Warriors, also claiming six wickets at an economical rate. However, the most eye-catching performance was by Sanchi Sharma. He has taken six wickets for the Gulf Giants, three of them coming against the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders, whose number two, three and four batters were his victims, sufficient to