The Abu Dhabi T10 League was up to a flying start on Friday, 19 November with the teams hitting a combined total of XX sixes on the opening day of the tournament.
In the inaugural game, which was played between Northern Warriors and Delhi Bulls, the latter chased down 108 runs with 6 balls remaining. There were no signs of nerves from batsmen in either team as they put the long handle to good use to hit a total of 13 sixes in the game.
However, the Bulls turned out to be far superior in terms of the batting total with Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Mohammad Hafeez and Sherfane Rutherford playing exciting cameos to clinch a clinical victory. Gurbaz was the pick among the batters, having scored 30 runs off just 10 balls. Hafeez and Rutherford played crucial innings of 31 off 18 and 29 off 15 respectively but none were as explosive as their Afghan teammate.
In the second game of the day, Team Abu Dhabi ripped into the bowling of Bangla Tigers with their top four batsmen scoring at the excess of 200 SR. They finished the first innings of the game at a gobsmacking 145/4 at the end of 10 overs, hitting 13 sixes in total. Chris Gayle and Paul Stirling were pick among the batters in the Abu Dhabi innings scoring 59 and 49 runs respectively. Both batsmen hit 5 sixes each in the course of their innings.
Coming out to chase in the final game of the day, Tigers did not have a good time with South African speedster Marchant de Lange breathing fire in the 22 yards. The right arm pace bowler picked up 5 wickets in his registered 2 overs giving away just 23 runs.
Tigers could only manage to put up 105 for the loss of 8 wickets in their 10 overs. They only managed 5 sixes in their innings, with Andre Fletcher hitting two of those sixes en route his 24 off 8 deliveries. He was clean bowled by Marchant de Lange in the second over itself.