Sunday night in Houston witnessed the Major League Cricket (MLC) draft when the six MLC franchises converged at Space Center Houston to make their domestic picks and announced international signings for the inaugural 2023 season.
The Seattle Orcas, Washington Freedom, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Los Angeles Knight Riders and Texas (team name still to be announced) each made nine picks with some teams announcing major international signings during the two-hour event.
The player draft aside, with an initial $120 million in funding, it comes as no surprise that MLC has the “prints” of the Indian Premier League writ large on the proceedings. Four of the franchises in the upcoming T20 league have team owners in commomn with those from the IPL. As for the remaining two franchises, they trace their owners to persons of Indian origin (PIOs).
MLC team owners
Texas – Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd, Anurag Jain and Ross Perot Jr
Los Angeles Knight Riders – Knight Riders Group
MI New York – Indiawin Sports (Reliance Industries Ltd)
Seattle Orcas – GMR Group, Satya Nadella
San Francisco Unicorns – Anand Rajaraman, Venky Harinarayan
The 2023 MLC season starts July 13 in a brand-new cricket-specific venue – Grand Prairie Stadium – in Grand Prairie, Texas. Teams will play the explosive Twenty20 (T20) format of the game, with matches typically lasting three hours. The regular season will consist of five games, with each team playing each other once, followed by a playoff round and the championship on July 30.
