New Delhi, Oct 10 (IANS) Former Indian cricketer and Royal Desert Champions' Team Director Robin Singh highlighted that playing in T10 cricket needs "very high levels of skills" as there is hardly any time to bide.

The rigours of T20 cricket have already tested some of the classical batsmen with the playing techniques significantly different from what is seen in the Test format. However, the shorter 60-ball T10 leagues present an entirely different challenge for the batters to go all guns blazing from ball one.

Speaking exclusively to IANS, Robin spoke on what makes T10 cricket a different ball game than T20 cricket. "T10 is almost like playing the last 10 overs of a T20 game to some extent or in the power plays, for that matter," he told IANS.

"You have to take a lot more risks in T10. So your skill levels have to be very high. So people who are confident (in skills) are the ones who succeed. If you second-guess yourself, you'll be in trouble in T10," the former India international added.

Meanwhile, Singh is the Team Director of Royal Desert Champions. They had pre-signings in Nicholas Pooran, Phil Salt and Sherfane Rutherford and roped in the likes of Muhammad Waseem, Naseem Shah and Maheesh Theekshana, among others during the player draft.

Singh stated that their approach to the draft was the same that is needed for picking a team for a tournament as short as a T10 format. "Yeah, I think we got about 80% of what we wanted (from the draft). Drafts are always a bit tricky. You don't really know who you'll get because it depends on the pick before you and how people build their squad.

"So it really depends on a little bit of luck in terms of what you want. But at the same time, you have a strategy in place where if you don't get X, you can try and get Y to compensate. So you build a team around those things.

"As I said, you have to try and pick a well-balanced team. Most importantly, (pick) the seasoned cricketers, people who can execute skills. Because it's a very fast format. It's very quick. You don't have any respite. There is no time to relax. There are no sighters when you go to play. There are no free deliveries when you go to play. So you need to be on the button," he added.

--IANS

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