It's time for Major League Cricket (MLC). The latest in an increasingly long line of franchise T20 tournaments, this one in the USA… Here's everything you need to know about it (but didn't know whom to ask).
What! Another T20 league? Aren't there some 50 of these already out there?
Yes, but wait. This could be different. Franchise cricket is going to the USA for the first time, after all.
In the USA? Why? Do they even play cricket there?
Of course they do. And as far back as ... 1844! In fact USA was part of the first cricket match involving two countries (as opposed to clubs or other domestic clashes). That was against Canada, at the St George's Cricket Club ground in New York.
More recently, the USA men's team was at the ODI World Cup qualifier in Zimbabwe. They did not win a single game, but reaching the qualifiers is an achievement in itself.
They have talented players in the system and this league can help grow the game there. The timing of the event is significant too, since USA and West Indies will host the men's T20 World Cup around this time next year. And, being the hosts, USA (and West Indies) have gained automatic qualification to that tournament.
Okay, you have my attention now. Tell me more...
MLC has been in the works for a while and, after multiple delays, it will finally see the light of day on July 13. It is being operated by American Cricket Enterprises (ACE) and has been sanctioned by USA Cricket. The ICC has also given official sanction for the league.
ACE is backed by Sameer Mehta and Vijay Srinivasan, founders of Willow TV, the largest cricket broadcaster in North America, and Satyan Gajwani and Vineet Jain of the Times Group in India. MLC has received financial backing to the tune of US$ 120 million from a number of investors, including Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, and Shantanu Narayen, chairman and CEO of Adobe.
It will be a short, crisp 19-game tournament - at least in the first season - with the first game on July 13 (July 14 in India, at 6am IST) and the final on July 30 (July 31 in India, at 6am IST).
In all, there will be 15 group-stage games followed by an eliminator, two qualifiers and the final. Six teams are in action and will start with a round-robin format, with the top four advancing to the playoffs. The format is similar to what they have at the IPL, but the teams will face each other only once in the league phase. Here's the full list of fixtures.
Six teams, you say. Those are...?
Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas, Texas Super Kings and Washington Freedom.
Whoa, hold on! Knight Riders, Super Kings, MI… sounds familiar.
Four of the six teams are owned by IPL franchise owners.
You can tell who owns LA Knight Riders, MI Knight Riders and Texas Super Kings, right? And Seattle Orcas are owned by the GMR Group, who co-own Delhi Capitals. These groups own teams in other T20 leagues too, of course. And this raises the stakes even more.
Washington Freedom are owned by Indian-American entrepreneur Sanjay Govil, and will have Cricket New South Wales as a high-performance partner. San Francisco Unicorns are owned by Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan, and they have partnered with Cricket Victoria for their first season. It's all pretty serious business, as you can tell.
And these matches will be played in?
Two venues. The first eight league games will be held at Grand Prairie Stadium in Texas before the teams move to Church Street Park Stadium in Morrisville for the next seven outings. The playoffs will be staged at Grand Prairie again.
Never heard of these stadiums. Anything more on them?
The Grand Prairie is a former baseball park, and was redeveloped into a cricket stadium in 2022. The new stadium has a capacity of close to 7000. The other venue, Church Street Park, is in Morrisville, North Carolina, and has a capacity of around 3500, which can be expanded up to 5000.
Nothing in Fort Lauderdale? That's where they play international cricket, isn't it?
Yes, true, but two of the T20Is on India's tour of the Caribbean are being played there in August. So...
But will people come to watch?
We can only know once the games begin, but MLC recently announced that the tickets for the opening fixture between Texas and Los Angeles have been sold out. South Asian and Caribbean expats make up most of the cricket community there, and much of the USA national team, too. You'd expect them to come to watch.
Tickets can be bought from the MLC website.
And where can we watch the games if not at the ground?
In the USA and Canada, it's on Willow TV. In India, it will be on Sports18 and Jio. If you are in Australia, MLC will be on Fox, SportsMax in the Caribbean, SKY NZ in New Zealand, A Sports in Pakistan, SuperSport in South Africa and BT Sport in the UK.
Who are the big players in action?
Los Angles have Jason Roy, Sunil Narine and Andre Russell. New York have Rashid Khan, Trent Boult and Kieron Pollard. San Francisco have Aaron Finch, Marcus Stoinis and Corey Anderson. Texas have Faf du Plessis, Devon Conway and David Miller. Seattle have Quinton de Kock, Shimron Hetmyer, Imad Wasim and Sikandar Raza. And Washington have Anrich Nortje and Marco Jansen.
Impressive, eh? The full squads are here.
Can they field as many overseas players as they want, or is there a cap?
Each side can have a maximum of 19 and a minimum of 16 players on their roster. A maximum of nine international players are allowed in the squads. Each squad needs to have at least one USA Under-23 player, and must have at least ten domestic players, which is being done to give the next generation of American talents a chance to rub shoulders with the best.
The final playing XIs can have a maximum of six overseas players and five domestic players.
Sweet. How were the players drafted?
The domestic players were signed via a player draft, which was held at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston on March 19. Harmeet Singh, who was part of India's 2012 Under-19 World Cup-winning side, was the first pick, snapped up by Seattle. Steven Taylor was the first American-born player picked in the draft, by New York, while another former India U-19 start Unmukt Chand, who is in the USA now, went to Los Angeles.
You can read all about how the player draft went.
Any other Indian players?
Apart from Chand and Harmeet, we have Chaitanya Bishnoi, Tajinder Singh, Shubham Ranjane and Smit Patel. All of these players have retired from the Indian domestic circuit. Ambati Rayudu was also slated to take part but withdrew in the wake of the BCCI's proposal to introduce a year-long cooling-off period for retired players before they can participate in overseas T20 leagues.
That's a bummer. Do we know the captains?
Yep, we do. Texas: Faf du Plessis. Los Angeles: Sunil Narine. Seattle: Wayne Parnell. New York: Kieron Pollard. San Francisco: Aaron Finch. Washington: Moises Henriques.
Lastly, these games will have T20 status?
No. While they are being played in the T20 format, the records will not reflect in the players' profiles because the USA - like the UAE, where the ILT20 is held - is not a Full-Member nation.