ILT20: West Indies star Shimron Hetmyer joins Desert Vipers
The 28-year-old was part of the Gulf Giants in the first three seasons of the DP World ILT20, including season one where that team won the title by defeating the Desert Vipers in the final.
Desert Vipers Director of Cricket, Tom Moody, welcomed the new recruit.
'Shimron is a player we rate extremely highly so for us to secure his services is a real coup,' he said. 'He has proved a thorn in our side in the DP World ILT20 in the past so to have him in our ranks now is great news.'
The left-handed batter has played some memorable knocks against the Vipers, including smashing 70 off just 35 deliveries in season one.
Hetmyer said he was looking forward to joining the squad.
'I am so happy to be joining the Desert Vipers. I have enjoyed my battles with the team during the past three seasons. The franchise is filled with quality players and I am looking forward to playing with them rather than against them.'
With a strike rate of over 150 across those three seasons, having scored 390 (48 fours and 33 sixes) of his 666 runs in fours and sixes, Hetmyer is a hard hitter who can bring down any opposition on his day.
Moody believes he could be a key disruptor for the team.
'Shimron is a game-changer with the bat and someone who can fill multiple roles,' he said. 'He is capable of batting in the top order and as a finisher, and his power and his ability to clear the fence are attributes we welcome.
'But he is also a smart cricketer who knows the T20 format inside-out. I have no doubt Shimron will be a huge asset for the Desert Vipers in the coming season and we look forward to welcoming him to our team later this year.'
The Desert Vipers have twice been runners-up in the DP World ILT20 but are yet to win a championship, and Hetmyer is eager to change that statistic.
'I have seen the way the Vipers have been run, and the fact the team has reached two finals in three years speaks for itself,' he said. 'They have been so close to the trophy and hopefully my arrival will be the final piece of the puzzle to make sure the team finishes season four as winners.
'I love the tournament. It is such a great experience as a player, and I cannot wait to link up with the team in Dubai later this year.'
Hetmyer brings with him a wealth of experience, having represented the West Indies at junior and senior levels, including leading them to victory in the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup in 2016.
The left-hander is also in great demand on the franchise circuit and has played across the globe including in The Hundred, the Pakistan Super League, the Indian Premier League, the Caribbean Premier League, Major League Cricket and the DP World ILT20.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Khaleej Times
6 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
Third edition of ILT20 Development Tournament begins on August 24
The third edition of the DP World International League T20 Development Tournament will begin on August 24 at the ICC Academy Oval 1, Dubai. The 18-match tournament will feature six teams, and the tournament will be conducted in a single-league, round-robin format. Defending champions Gulf Giants Development will be joined by Abu Dhabi Knight Riders Development, Desert Vipers Development, Dubai Capitals Development, MI Emirates Development, and Sharjah Warriorz Development. The six tournament squads will be chosen via Player Selection Draft, which will be conducted on 18 August at the Dubai International Stadium. Each team will consist of 15 players from the UAE. The tournament is an opportunity for aspiring cricketers in UAE to showcase their talent and grab the attention of the six DP World ILT20 franchises ahead of Season 4 which will be played in December-January 2025-2026. With UAE Men's participation in the Sharjah Tri-Series (29 August to 7 September) and the ACC Men's T20 Asia Cup 2025, the DP World ILT20 Development Tournament will be a golden opportunity for UAE's emerging players to dazzle in front of the franchise selectors and earn a spot in the main event. Each of the six DP World ILT20 franchises will need to pick minimum of four UAE players per squad for tournament's Season 4 which will begin on December 2. 'The DP World ILT20 Development Tournament is one of the most sought-after events in the Emirates Cricket Board's domestic calendar. The platform is ideal for young and emerging players from all over the country to showcase their talent and stake a claim for a place in the DP World ILT20," said Andrew Russell, Tournament Director - DP World ILT20 Development Tournament. 'Last year, fast bowler Farhan Ahmed was discovered by Dubai Capitals at the development tournament, Farhan went on to dazzle at the DP World ILT20 Season 3 with the Capitals winning the tournament. Saghir Khan is another player who excelled in the development tournament last year and got his chance in the big event representing the Gulf Giants. 'This particular edition is potentially the biggest opportunity for new talent to shine especially with a lot of slots up for grabs in the absence of UAE's national players who will be competing in the Tri-Series in Sharjah and the ACC Men's T20 Asia Cup.' The DP World International League T20 Player Auction for Season 4 will be held a few days after the ACC Men's T20 Asia Cup. The six tournament teams will each get the opportunity of adding 13 players each (a total of 78 players) to their Season 4 squads at the auction.
Khaleej Times
7 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
Rashid Khan proud to join Ben Stokes, Kagiso Rabada in 'Red Bull family'
Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan is delighted to join talismanic England all-rounder Ben Stokes, South African pace spearhead Kagiso Rabada and Indian star KL Rahul as a Red Bull athlete. 'I'm so proud to be with Red Bull, it was a kind of a dream for me to be an athlete with Red Bull. I am the second (third) player from Asia to be associated with Red Bull, it's huge for me,' he said. 'Players like KL (Rahul), Ben Stokes and KG (Kagiso Rabada) are part of them. So it's an amazing feeling, I'm so excited to be joining this family, and I'm looking forward to it.' As part of the partnership, the 26-year-old bowling all-rounder will visit the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center (APC) in Salzburg, Austria. Rashid, who is now playing the Oval Invincibles in The Hundred, will lead Afghanistan at the Asia Cup in the UAE next month.
Khaleej Times
7 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
From refugee to role model: Rashid Khan eyes Olympic glory for Afghanistan
When Kabul Express hit theatres in 2006, Rashid Khan was a cricket-obsessed eight-year-old living as a refugee in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. Today, Rashid is an Afghan cricket superstar and the greatest white-ball spinner on the global stage. But each time Rashid and his free-spirited Afghan teammates go toe to toe with the big guns in cricket, a heart-melting scene from Kabul Express comes flooding back. In the Bollywood thriller, John Abraham and Arshad Warsi play the roles of television journalists who have an assignment that is not for the faint-hearted — they must travel to Afghanistan for a 'big interview' with a Taliban leader and give their viewers a first-hand account of life in a war-ravaged country. In one of the opening scenes of the movie, Abraham warms up for his first day in Afghanistan by doing push-ups at the entrance of a building that was shattered by American bombing in a place where none of the buildings escaped the brunt of missiles and bullets. Abraham then notices a young boy enjoying the quiet morning. He poses and gets up to smile at the boy before playfully asking him to join in. The boy responds, but as he rises, the smile on Abraham's face fades. With his left leg amputated, the boy is on crutches and yet stands with poise, greeting Abraham with a bright smile on his face, leaving the audience battling a whirlpool of emotions. Gladiatorial spirit That uplifting smile on that boy's face echoes the gladiatorial spirit of Afghan cricketers who continue to defy the odds in international cricket. Next month, when Rashid leads Afghanistan at the Asia Cup T20 tournament in the UAE, his team will no longer be viewed as underdogs. Having reached the 2024 Twenty20 World Cup semis, barely a few months after they were just one win away from reaching the semifinals of the 2023 ODI World Cup, Afghanistan will be a strong contender for continental glory. It's remarkable to see the meteoric rise of Afghanistan, the world's only cricket team that has never played an international match on home soil due to the myriad conflicts that have crippled the country. The irony was not lost on cricket statistician Mazher Arshad when the Rashid-led team launched a giant-killing run at the T20 World Cup last year to reach the semifinals. '16 years ago, Afghanistan were in Division 5 of ICC World Cricket League and were playing against the likes of Japan, Singapore, Botswana etc,' Arshad wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 'Today, they are in the semifinal of ICC T20 World Cup ahead of the likes of Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, West Indies etc.' The explosion of cricket talent in the conflict-torn country boggles the mind, as most of their players first learned to play the game at refugee camps in Pakistan. Overcoming the obstacles Rashid, 26, who recently joined Ben Stokes, Kagiso Rabada and KL Rahul as a Red Bull athlete, zeroed in on one factor — motivation — when we asked him how cricket has become a beacon of hope in the face of adversity. 'When you talk about the problems we have back home, the obstacles and everything, those problems give us a huge motivation as players and as a team,' Rashid told Khaleej Times over a Zoom video call from the UK. 'When you look at our country, you see those people. The only happiness for them is cricket — the only thing which gives them an opportunity to celebrate in life is cricket. And that's the biggest motivation for us.' Unable to play at home, Afghanistan played their home matches at Sharjah Cricket Stadium for many years before shifting base to India. Their 'home' ground may have changed, but what hasn't changed is their ability to produce incredibly talented young players. 'We don't have that kind of facility back home, but we have the talent. All the progress we have had over the last five years, especially in ICC events where we were almost in the semifinals in 2023 (ODI World Cup) and 2024 (T20 World Cup), we got into the semifinal against South Africa, this is a massive achievement for us,' Rashid said. 'It shows we have talent in our country. We have got skills, it's just about making sure we get the opportunity to play against the big teams in back-to-back games, which gives you a great learning experience, and then you get better. So over the last four, five years, I think we got that kind of opportunity to play against the big teams back-to-back. 'Initially, we struggled, but we learned from those mistakes, and when we faced them again, we gave them a tough time. And then we won against them. So that's how I feel we have performed really well in the last couple of years in World Cups.' Cricket in every street The streets of Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad and every city and town of Afghanistan are now teeming with young children playing the game of bat and ball. 'Everywhere you go, not only in Kabul, but in every city you go to, you will find people playing cricket. And that's a big, big plus point for the country,' Rashid said. In recent years, the rise of Rashid, Mujeeb-ur Rahman, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Naveen ul Haq, Noor Ahmad and Fazalhaq Farooqi has acted as a catalyst for the Afghan cricket revolution. 'We were not able to see this kind of craze for cricket before because not many people wanted to play — their parents would not allow them to play cricket. We haven't had much future for the kids at that time, we had no superstars that they could follow, they had no role models,' Rashid said. 'And now what we have done as a team so far has inspired all the youngsters to come out to play cricket in the streets and to go to academies and different grounds. It's a massive change for the country.' Rashid, the role model The leg-spinner, a big star in the cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL), now counts several Bollywood celebrities among his fans. But while growing up with his 10 siblings in Peshawar after the family fled the Afghan war following the 9/11 terror attack in New York, Rashid was the biggest fan of Shahid Afridi, Pakistan's maverick all-rounder. There are echoes of 'Boom Boom' Afridi in Rashid's fearless batting as a bowling all-rounder, but it's in the bowling department that he drew inspiration from the former Pakistan captain. Unlike the traditional spinners, Rashid bowls quicker through the air, bamboozles the batters with his googly and subtle variations. His combination of skills and ice-cool temperament has earned him 405 wickets from just 216 matches across three formats in international cricket. Even more than that astonishing haul of wickets, it's his relentless accuracy in the death overs that has made him one of the world's most feared bowlers — both in international and franchise cricket. No wonder he gets mobbed every time he visits his native country, where almost every kid wants to become the next Rashid Khan. 'It's a great feeling that I have become an inspiration for all the youngsters. Whenever I go back to the country and see all those youngsters, how badly they want to be like me, it reminds me of the time when I was a fan of the players I liked,' he said. 'It gives you so much happiness as well, and a proud moment that what I've done so far for the country and different teams (in franchise cricket), I think it's massive. It's a really great feeling when youngsters come up and they show that kind of love and tell you that they want to be like you in the future. I try my best to share the experience with the kids whenever I get a chance to spend time with them.' Olympic dream Rashid, who is now playing for the Oval Invincibles in The Hundred, his first tournament following an injury layoff, has already set his sights on glory at the Asia Cup and the T20 World Cup next year. 'I am super excited for the Asia Cup. I think that's the best opportunity for us to play against the best teams again, and it's the best preparation (for the 2026 T20 World Cup),' he said. 'And playing the Asia Cup in the UAE means a lot of Afghan fans will come out in big numbers and support the team, and that's something which gives us so much energy and motivation. 'It's always amazing to see how much they love watching us play. And that's so important for us because that inspires us to deliver the best.' Rashid is also hoping to inspire the Afghan team to deliver a medal-winning performance at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, where cricket will make its first Olympic appearance since 1900. 'It's going to be a massive moment for us to be participating in the Olympics. And to win a medal for the country is more than a dream,' he smiled. 'You know we are so excited because for Afghanistan, winning an Olympic medal will be bigger than winning a World Cup.' Indeed, it's not hard to imagine the jubilant celebrations in every street of Afghanistan and the beaming smiles on Afghan faces if Rashid and his men step onto the Olympic podium — a scene straight out of a movie.
