No one knew what to expect as the first ever 10-over, professional cricket league was ushered in in Sharjah 12 months ago.
Would anyone turn up? Would the cricket be an affront to sporting decency? Would the games be too short, or the days too long? What would be a good score? Would it fit the Olympics?
Scepticism was rife. Six players from one team alone opted out in the days leading up to it. Owners were making SOS calls to players around the world, whom they might not have known much better than an online biography, to see if they fancied a game.
Even the competition’s name – and all the related bunting and branding – had to be redone late in the day. All this was, once upon a time, supposed to be the Ten Cricket League, only for it to become the T10 League after a conflict over the naming rights.
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Read more:
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Rashid Khan hopes Maratha Arabians' Afghan connection can light up T10 League
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And, then, all really was all right on the night.
Better than all right, in fact. Way better. This was cricket. OK, not the way any of us had seen it before. But it was still cricket. And it was – whisper it – enjoyable.
The crowds were vast. Sharjah sold out twice in the four nights of matches, and went close on the other two, as well.
Even the Great Khali showed up. The 7ft 1in, Indian-born WWE wrestler and occasional Hollywood movie star knows a fair bit about entertainment himself. And he seemed to enjoy himself at cricket’s newest event.
Something must have gone right the last time, because all of the star turns are back, ready to deliver more this time around.
The presence of those originals has been bolstered by more of the game’s great and good, too. When the newly-expanded Season 2 starts on Wednesday night, the player roster will include the world’s No 1 ranked T20 bowler – Rashid Khan – as well as the man who has hit more T20 centuries than anyone else – Chris Gayle.
And the coach who has presided over more success than anyone else at the Indian Premier League, Stephen Fleming, will be in situ, as well.
The fact T10 League 2.0 starts in a better place than the first edition managed last year is unarguable. And that despite the challenges that have come its way in recent times.
Issues still remain. Kerala Kings, the defending champions are now – as of as recently as Sunday – known as the Kerala Knights instead.
When most of their players disembarked their planes from their various points of the globe, they might have been looking for a representative of the Kings, rather than Knights. The team’s twitter handle remains @KeralaKingsT10.
And players who thought they were representing a franchise known as Karachians had to train in their own clothes at their Tuesday training session. The team-issue gear was not quite ready for them, seeing as the team was now known as Sindhis instead.
All of which is the latest fall-out from the explosive rift between the original co-owners of the league. Salman Iqbal, the president last year, who also owns the Karachi Kings franchise in the Pakistan Super League, resigned.
His most recent action has been to move for an injunction which has prevented the T10 League having either the Karachi or Kings references they had originally planned.
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The Cricket Pod:
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On the eve of the second season, Shaji Ul Mulk, the T10 League’s founder and chairman, remained unfazed.
“It is an interim order, so what we are doing is temporarily changing the names,” Ul Mulk said. “The underlying factor is that Salman has been trying to create a campaign, always. He moved it in the high court there, and we were surprised, without calling or asking us, they put an injunction where there is a temporary stay and we can’t use the words.
“We didn’t have time to fight the case, it takes a while to fight, and we said, ‘OK, for this season, we will change the names, then continue to argue our case’.”
Ul Mulk is confident his concept can continue to thrive, despite the challenges faced of late.
“I’ve always said the league is bigger than any individuals,” he said. “The fact is the world bodies, as well as the top individuals and star cricketers, believe in the product, and we have answered properly every single negative question asked.
“I am proud of the team who has stuck behind this, especially all the franchise owners, who have said this is something to believe in and to take forward.”
Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
PROFILE
Name: Enhance Fitness
Year started: 2018
Based: UAE
Employees: 200
Amount raised: $3m
Investors: Global Ventures and angel investors
The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela
Edited by Sahm Venter
Published by Liveright
Landfill in numbers
• Landfill gas is composed of 50 per cent methane
• Methane is 28 times more harmful than Co2 in terms of global warming
• 11 million total tonnes of waste are being generated annually in Abu Dhabi
• 18,000 tonnes per year of hazardous and medical waste is produced in Abu Dhabi emirate per year
• 20,000 litres of cooking oil produced in Abu Dhabi’s cafeterias and restaurants every day is thrown away
• 50 per cent of Abu Dhabi’s waste is from construction and demolition
Results
Ashraf Ghani 50.64 per cent
Abdullah Abdullah 39.52 per cent
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar 3.85 per cent
Rahmatullah Nabil 1.8 per cent
What drives subscription retailing?
Once the domain of newspaper home deliveries, subscription model retailing has combined with e-commerce to permeate myriad products and services.
The concept has grown tremendously around the world and is forecast to thrive further, according to UnivDatos Market Insights’ report on recent and predicted trends in the sector.
The global subscription e-commerce market was valued at $13.2 billion (Dh48.5bn) in 2018. It is forecast to touch $478.2bn in 2025, and include the entertainment, fitness, food, cosmetics, baby care and fashion sectors.
The report says subscription-based services currently constitute “a small trend within e-commerce”. The US hosts almost 70 per cent of recurring plan firms, including leaders Dollar Shave Club, Hello Fresh and Netflix. Walmart and Sephora are among longer established retailers entering the space.
UnivDatos cites younger and affluent urbanites as prime subscription targets, with women currently the largest share of end-users.
That’s expected to remain unchanged until 2025, when women will represent a $246.6bn market share, owing to increasing numbers of start-ups targeting women.
Personal care and beauty occupy the largest chunk of the worldwide subscription e-commerce market, with changing lifestyles, work schedules, customisation and convenience among the chief future drivers.
What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
