Sharjah became a hub of cricketing activity once again. A new cricket format where the number of players in a team was higher than the number of overs per innings for the first time in cricket history – it was T10 cricket.

The ten-over-a-side matches, spread over 90 minutes, were played at a breakneck speed, like one would have expected. Run rates and strike rates reached obscene figures. The tournament itself was as swift as the format, lasting just four days with the team named Kerala Kings (more on that later) becoming champions.

And in case you were busy following the more familiar versions of cricket such as the Ashes and India’s rout of Sri Lanka, we watched some matches and not surprisingly, found certain things about the league to be, for the lack of a harsher word, bizarre

For what it’s worth, there were some nail-biting matches, some phenomenal batting by Shoaib Malik, Luke Ronchi et al and a hat-trick by Shahid Afridi – the cricket was compelling in phases. But let’s pretend for now that this is not serious cricket and hence not bother with analysing strategies, and scoring patterns and what not.

Instead, here’s a look at what else stood out from the tournament.

Talks of Olympics

Let’s get the serious issue out of the way. Ever since the promotion for the tournament began, the talk has been about the format will make way for cricket’s entry into Olympics. Virender Sehwag said it. Eoin Morgan said it. And the men organising the event, whenever a mic was thrust in their face during the matches, repeated it ad nauseam.

And no, it’s not.

The biggest stumbling block to cricket becoming an Olympic sport is not the duration of Twenty20 cricket – it’s a general unwillingness on the behalf of ICC and it’s member countries to make this happen. If the sport had to be entered for Olympics, there is no need whatsoever for a completely new format when T20 has been around for long enough.

The idea of Olympics was nothing more than a marketing gimmick.

The team names

If you did not know such a tournament was happening and happened to just stumble up on it while channel surfing, you would have been excused for being bewildered about the names of the teams. Kerala Kings, Punjabi Legends, Bengal Tigers and Maratha Arabians – four very Indian-sounding teams in a league where there was a grand total of one Indian player involved – Virender Sehwag, who captained the Arabians.

And speaking of Sehwag, the only notable contribution from him was being the hat-trick victim of Shahid Afridi in the only ball he faced in the entire tournament.

So much for all the marketing campaigns.

Sponsored dot balls

Fans of the Indian Premier League are now used to Karbonn Kamaal catches, DLF Maximums, CEAT Tyre time-outs, so on and so forth. But the T10 league took it a notch higher but finding a sponsor for every single dot ball.

For every ball without a run being scored, “It’s an Alubond dot ball!” would flash on the screen, alongside the commentators repeating it. There was one instance where Rameez Raja had to explain to Sri Lanka’s Roshan Abeysinghe on air that it was not “aloo-bond” like he was pronouncing it, it was “al-you-bond” instead.

Epic.

At this rate, the cliche that dot balls are gold dust in the shorter formats is soon going to be a reality.

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The focus on the entourage

Despite the number of overs being halved from a T20, the broadcasters found a way to double the duration of which the entourage of the teams, the random celebrities and VIPs present were shown on screen. The producers cut to the live action right at the exact moment that the ball was about to be delivered and not a second earlier. The rest of the time was spent entirely on showing celebrities clapping, dancing, staring into the distance apart from innumerable sideline interviews which sang praises of the cricket on display.

Strategic timeouts

If you thought two strategic timeouts in a T20 innings, irrespective of the match situation demanding any strategic intervention, was bizarre then this tournament stretched it even further by having one after every five overs. As if this format requires any strategy other than throwing the kitchen sink at every ball.

Crowd chants and the announcer’s antics

Chants of ‘Jeetega bhai, jeetega, Pakistan jeetega!’ were, while not surprising, a bit odd in a tournament, where every team was comprised primarily of Pakistan cricketers. Maybe the fans were poetically indicating that, at the end of the day, Pakistan was the real winner. Add to this, the announcer in the stadium going “OOOHH” and “AAAHH” after pretty much every ball, it made for some jarring viewing on television.

But, on a serious note, the stadium was packed with fans for almost the entirety of the tournament. Even if reports of fans being given free tickets, meal coupons and jerseys were true, it seemed the crowd was having a good time after all.

Match timings

With as many as four matches being crammed into one day in the league, matches finished as late as 01:30 am on all four days. With presentation ceremonies after match, and the balls flying out of the ground on a regular basis, fans were made to sit through the action well past midnight. And spare a thought for the commentators as well, who were audibly tired on air – even Danny Morrison of all people sounded as mellow as a Richie Benaud towards the end of the day’s action.

Post-match awards

And a big part of why the fans were made to wait so late in the night were the interminable post-match presentation ceremonies. It can happen only in cricket today that with every reduction in the number of overs, the number of awards being presented after the match keep increasing. Seriously, how else can you have six - SIX – awards for a match that lasted 20 overs? The icing on that particular cake was the “Most energetic player of the match” award.

Times, they are a changin’.

Short boundaries

Sharjah, the stadium that holds the record for hosting the most One Day Internationals in the history of the sport, has a reputation for being batsman-friendly. Who can forget those epic Sachin Tendulkar innings in 1998, when he bullied the Australian bowlers, by repeatedly smashing them for sixes. And part of the reason for that was the relatively small size of the ground – clearing the ropes, even in the days of smaller bats and better bowlers, was not a biggie.

And, not surprisingly, the T10 league organisers decided to bring the boundaries even further in. Why not? Who cares about bowlers these days anyway? Why bother making the sport an even contest between bat and ball when you can have outside edges and mis-hits sail over the ropes for a “Sapil Solid Shot”?

Toss winners

On a scale of 1 to 10 of bizarre-ness, this has to feature right at the top. If you were a captain of any of the six teams and walked out for the toss, and either called it right or saw your counterpart call it wrong, you get a gold coin. No, seriously.

As a die-hard cricket fan summed it up on social media: “One thing I found weird about the T10 league? The T10 League itself.”