Sanjay Pahal

They're coming back to a place where they're familiar with the coaches they're working with and the players and the surroundings.

And Phil, uh, you've retained three of the four UAE players you had last season, Kuzaimah Bin Tanvir, Richa Aravind, Sanjay Pahal.

How important was that, having that spine of UAE players back again, particularly Kuzaimah, who was such a star, of course, last season?

Yeah, indeed.

After all, the Giants had topped the league stage of the competition with four wins from five matches and then won both the semi-final and final meaning six victories in seven outings.

Aside from that, the Vipers could be proud of creating a fantastic team spirit in a short space of time, led by Coach Luffman and his assistants, and also the Vipers' veterans from last season's DP World ILT20 winning campaign, Vitya Aravind, Sanjay Pahal, Matyula Khan and Kuzema Bintanvir.

And they were able to expose three players from the Vipers Talent Pathway Programme, Ayan Misbah, Punya Bhatia and Angad Nehru to a senior tournament, which represented valuable experience for that trio, giving them an idea of where they were on their journey to higher honours.

And let's not forget too, that by reaching the final of the development tournament, The Vipers made it four successive finals in domestic action as they featured in the ultimate match in successive DP World ILT20s and now successive development tournaments.

But the Vipers never gave up.

Sanjay Pahal ran out Basil Hamid, who looked dangerous in scoring 31 from 20 balls, and then Sanjay and Kuzema Ben Tanvir were superb at the death.

Kuzema's last two overs cost just six runs, and he finished with one for 18 from his full allocation of four overs, and that included 13 dot balls.

Sanjay, meanwhile, ended up with four for 26.

And then, like I said earlier, the introduction of Nilanche and two wickets in his first over sort of evened the game out thoroughly.

And we were then able to sort of drive home the momentum in that back half of their innings.

Tell us about Sanjay Pahal's run-out of Basil Hamid, who played so well for Sharjah with 31 from 20 balls.

Yeah, I mean, as we all know, and you've seen it firsthand, Brian, Sanjay is an extremely high-quality fielder with great hands that he's shown all tournament.

That left ADKR with 196 for eight, the third highest total of this season's tournament so far, and it left the Vipers batters with a mountain to climb.

There were two wickets apiece for Wali Mohamed, Sanjay Pahal and Kuzema bin Tanvir on his first appearance this season following international duty, while Wazim Akram and Hilal Afghan took one apiece.

With such an imposing total to chase, it meant the Vipers' batters had to be ultra-positive, but no one could produce in innings of substance to provide a platform for that chase.

Top score was Nilanj Keswani with 35, but of the other players, only Punya Bhatia with 22 topped 20.