Dean Jones hoping to use Pakhtoons "home ground" advantage in T10 League

Jones’ first official task was to select the remaining eight players of his squad for the league, which starts in Sharjah on November 23, at the T10 player draft in Dubai on Monday night.

“You don’t get everyone that you want but geez there’s some strong teams,” said Jones when asked if he was happy with his pick-ups from the draft.

“It’s trying to find out the right formula. You’re trying to find the formula to the solution to the Rubik’s cube really – how to play T10.

“We’ve only had one season and we’re trying to get a sample size, albeit smallish, to find out what’s the right pattern to play, what’s the style of play to actually do well in this form of the game.

“I went for left-hand quicks because their economy rate is nine in the T10 League, leg-spinners are a little bit better at 8.9, so we’ve all gone for left-hand quicks and try to mix it up with right hand-left hand batters.

“Particularly a lot more left-handers at the top end to stop the good teams, the Rashid Khans being able to bowl to you, as I think they struggle trying to bowl to left-handers.

“So we’ve got some very good power-hitters who are left-handers. Who knows? We don’t know the story of it yet.”

The proud Victorian said the team was also hoping to draw on “home ground” advantage.

Pakhtoon take their name from the Pashtun region in Afghanistan and Sharjah is fact becoming a centre for Afghan cricket and fans. The ground will host the inaugural T20 Afghanistan Premier League in October.

“We’ve picked up a lot of Afghanistan boys so obviously there’s an attraction to them,” he explained, “and they’re obviously playing fantastic cricket so they’re getting rewarded.

“We know how big the Afghanistan community is here (in Sharjah) – particularly in this part of the world.

“When you go to Man United and they are playing with 15 men because of their crowd. And the same thing goes when you play at Sharjah – hopefully we’ll have a 95 per cent Pakhtoon fans there and they’ll get behind us.

“It’s very very important the home ground advantage. They (Pakhtoon) made the final (last year) but the bowling – as normal in all forms of cricket – it’s the bowling that lets you down more than the batting.”

Asked about the extraordinary success of the T10 League in just its second year, Jones said: “It’s a nice little window, I think the experience is good, I think they (the players) enjoy it.

“It’s not too hard on their bodies, not a bad part of the world to come to be honest and it’s something new I think.

“The guys that play a lot of first class cricket, Test cricket, ODI cricket, T20 – this is a little bit new for them, it’s short and sweet and they get paid pretty good for it as well. What else would you rather do?”

Jones has greatly enjoyed his spells in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) in recent years, which is also played in the UAE, and he’s looking to carry that into the T10.

“Up to now it (T10) has been sensational,” he said, “look I haven’t been part of the T10 before but I’ve been part of the Pakistan Super League and it’s been nothing short of outstanding experience.

“How good has it been in Islamabad, playing in front of 50,000 people at Karachi? Nothing short of outstanding and we’ve had some wonderful games played here (in the UAE).

Jones finished by pointing out a key aspect of this year’s tournament preparations.

“Newly laid pitches I believe at Sharjah,” he said, “so that will be interesting to see how they come up.

“It’s a matter of who hits the ground running trying to qualify for the finals and as you know it’s a different game again (then).”