Rohit Sharma to Sandeep Lamichhane - 10 standout players of the 2018/19 UAE cricket season

Another active schedule of international cricket in the Emirates has seen a number of stand-out displays from household names and emerging stars

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  1. Rohit Sharma. Was the Asia Cup the biggest cricket event this country has staged to date? It is a fair claim – even if the tournament itself was lacking its most luminous star. No Virat Kohli? No problem for India, who powered their way to the title, only breaking sweat twice, as they were held to a tie by Afghanistan in a dead rubber, and in beating Bangladesh off the last ball of the final. In the absence of the rested Kohli, Rohit was tasked with providing leadership, runs, and stardust. He did so with aplomb. AFP

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  2. Mohammed Shahzad. Afghanistan’s rotund opener played two of the most extraordinary innings of the season. By the time he reached a century against India in the tied Super Four fixture in the Asia Cup, Gulbadin Naib, his batting partner, had just got to double figures. To put that into context, Gulbadin was Shahzad's fifth partner to that point – and the other four had managed just eight runs between them. The traffic was no less one way in the first T10 League match, when Shahzad revised what was thought possible as he hit 74 not out in 16 balls to win a match with six overs to spare. Chris Whiteoak / The National

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  3. Mohammed Abbas. It makes sense that a bowler of Abbas’s skills might excel on a greentop in the UK, or an unprepared wicket back at home in Pakistan. Not on the slow, low, featherbeds of the UAE. And yet, for the past two years, his 128-132kph medium-pacers have been as close to unplayable as a seamer could be in Tests in this country. Never more so than when he bowled Pakistan to a series win over Australia in October. AP Photo

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  4. Hazratullah Zazai. Abdullah Mazari ended up with a winner’s medal in October’s Afghanistan Premier League in Sharjah. Whether he merited it is debatable. He did, after all, bowl just the one over in the tournament. And that went for 37. To be fair, he was not the only one to suffer on an especially brutal night for bowlers. A total of 467 runs were scored in a match that included overs that went for 37, 33, 32 and 25. By the end of it, Hazratullah Zazai had earned global renown, and a slice of history for hitting six sixes in an over.. Satish Kumar for The National

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  5. Yasir Shah. The cricket played in whites in this country often passes with less fanfare than the limited-overs hypercolour. But achievements in Tests last longer. Which is why Yasir’s feats in the second Test between Pakistan and New Zealand in November are likely to endure more than most else this season. His 14-184 in the match were the third best Test figures by a leg-spinner in history. “That first innings, I think there was a spell of about half an hour of the best leg-spin bowling you will ever see,” Mickey Arthur, Pakistan’s coach, said. “It was incredible bowling.” AFP

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  6. Kane Williamson. In December, New Zealand completed a first away Test series win over Pakistan in almost 50 years. It perhaps does not require pointing out their hero was Kane Williamson. When is it ever not? The master batsman scored 89 and 139 as the series was sealed at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi. Chris Whiteoak / The National

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  7. Hardus Viljoen. T10 must be a nightmare for bowlers. Batsmen scoring individual centuries in a 10-over match? Frightening. Viljoen was up for the challenge, though. The South African fast bowler took 18 wickets from the 18 overs he bowled for Northern Warriors in the league in December. He ended up as the player of the tournament, and had a winners’ medal to go with. Chris Whiteoak / The National

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  8. Sandeep Lamichhane. It’s amazing to think that a player from Nepal would be such hot property that he would catch the eye in four separate competitions across the course of the UAE season. He played in the Afghanistan Premier League and T10 in Sharjah. Then he returned in February to help his national team beat UAE in T20 and ODI series in February. His best trick might have been saved for the Pakistan Super League, though, when he dismissed Shane Watson and Umar Akmal, then Babar Azam and Colin Munro - the top two ranked batsmen in the world - in consecutive matches. Chris Whiteoak / The National

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  9. Will Jacks. The ICC Academy hosted a variety of UAE schools for an open day on the same day in March on which four professional teams played a T10 festival on the outside ovals. The schoolkids had probably heard of the likes of Morne Morkel, Keaton Jennings, Ollie Pope and Ben Foakes, who were all involved in that competition. But they went home talking about someone entirely different. Will Jacks, a 20-year-old Surrey all-rounder, became the first player to score a century in a T10 match. And he hit six sixes in an over in the process. Chris Whiteoak / The National

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  10. Ghulam Shabber. This season was not especially kind to the UAE team. To start with, they had to watch enviously as Hong Kong played India and Pakistan in the Asia Cup, after snatching the one qualification place that might well have been the host nation’s instead. Then there was the ignominy of the Emerging Teams Asia Cup in Pakistan, which ended with more qualification despair, then suspensions for three senior players for ranting on Twitter. Dual series losses to Nepal in Dubai followed. At least Ghulam Shabber, the wicket-keeper, ended the season on a high, with a fine innings of 146 against United States. Chris Whiteoak/The National

Australia set the seal on the 2018-2019 international cricket season when they beat Pakistan by 20 runs in the final one-day international in Dubai on Sunday night.

Played out in front of a crowd that numbered in three figures, it was an anti-climactic end to the busiest season on record for cricket in this country. The campaign will be remembered for the feats of some of the greats of world cricket, as well as some emerging stars.

To see the 10 biggest standout players from this past season, scroll through the photo gallery above. To move on to the next picture, click on the arrows or thumbnails, or if using a mobile device, simply swipe.