The opening night of the T10 league saw Kerala Blasters beat Bengal Tigers in the first match, as the very second match of the league witnessed a hat-trick by Shahid Afridi.

In the 2nd match, Pakhtoons beat Maratha Arabians by 25 runs. Afridi took the wickets of Rossouw, DJ Bravo and Virendar Sehwag in succession in the very first 3 bowls he had bowled in this format.

Winning the toss Virender Sehwag—the skipper of the Arabians—chose to field first.

He said, “I enjoyed the first game very much. In such a format, it is important to bowl dot balls which will create pressure on the opposition.”

The Pakhtoons’ skipper was confident about this format’s success and said, “This format can help expand the cricket. We would love to see this format become popular around the world.”

Captain Afridi’s team scored 121 for 4 in the first innings. As he came to bowl in the second innings, he dismissed Rilee Rossouw as the South African tried to send the ball over the boundary, but got caught at long on by Najibullah Zadran.

The second player to get dismissed was DJ Bravo who was trapped lbw. Following him, the Maratha skipper, Sehwag got out in similar fashion. Then Afridi stood in his signature pose and celebrated his hat-trick as his hands were already in the air appealing to the umpire for the wicket.

Alex Hales played an unbeaten innings of 57 off 26 deliveries for the Maratha side. They were 25 runs short of the target after 10 overs.

Hales said, "I really loved it, I think it is a great format, full of excitement,"

"It is a shame we didn't get over the line today, we just lost wickets at crucial times, and that was probably the difference. You obviously have half the time of T20, and you just have to keep changing gears all the way through your innings."