Major League Cricket to take USA by storm amid fears of impact on English game
Last month, the draft for the inaugural Major League Cricket campaign took place at Houston's iconic space centre.
It feels surreal writing those words, to be honest, but there wasn’t a more fitting venue to launch this ambitious, exciting enterprise. Two decades after T20 cricket burst onto the scene, Major League Cricket will become the first professional franchise tournament to be established across the pond.
The United States isn’t a country renowned for its love of cricket, but the new competition will have a profound impact on the sport's long and ever-changing anatomy if it's successful.
That is a big if. As Robbie Williams and other British musicians will tell you, cracking the American market is no easy feat. Yet the architects of Major League Cricket - including former England bowler and World Cup winner Liam Plunkett - are confident of success.
"I’m very excited… I think it's got massive potential," Plunkett tells Mirror Sport. "I think we need to do it our way. We keep the [T20] cricket structure the same… but then we build up around that as the Americans would. You put the glitter on it; you have all the fireworks."
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Building Major League Cricket
Cricket is not a new phenomenon in the United States. The sport was brought across the pond by the British and remained popular after the country gained independence in the late 18th century.
The inaugural draft for Major League Cricket took place at Houston's iconic space centre (Major League Cricket)What's your opinion on Major League Cricket? Let us know in the comments below!
In fact, cricket's first ever international match was contested between the United States and Canada in 1844. It is believed up to 20,000 people attended St George's Cricket Club in New York to watch the first day's play, with Canada winning the two-innings match by 23 runs.
Eventually, though, baseball became America's sport with a stick, and cricket's popularity waned. There have been attempts to establish a professional game in the United States before, but to no avail. Yet confidence has been renewed for a variety of reasons.
Major League Cricket's architects have developed the infrastructure for a franchise tournament to flourish, while the South Asian American population has grown to five million.
Justin Geale, Major League Cricket’s tournament director, explains, "Cricket is played here, across the country, in great numbers. There are many leagues; it's been tried a couple of times to do it to this scale.
"Infrastructure is the biggest challenge we have... that's been a stumbling block in holding back the game from growing. That's been a big focus of ours during the last three years - to build an infrastructure so we can get more of elite, high-performance cricket happening."
Plunkett adds, "That’s why we’re here - for cricket. A lot of hard work has been going on behind the scenes. A lot of stuff is out on socials and people can see that hard work."
Minor League Cricket, a development tournament first played in 2021, has helped build momentum and will continue to act as a feeder league for Major League Cricket.
"We've spent three years building out of Minor League Cricket, so we've now got that pathway," notes Geale. "I guess it's the unsexy stuff that no one's seen or heard about during the last few years; what we've had to do to get to these announcements for Major League Cricket, which is a lot more exciting and a bit more glitz and glamour."
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IPL influence
The road to Major League Cricket started in 2019, when USA Cricket - the sport's new governing body - brought on American Cricket Enterprises (ACE) as investors.
An initial $120million of funding was secured, with Indian Premier League (IPL) chiefs investing in four of the franchises: Los Angeles Knight Riders (parent club, Kolkata Knight Riders), MI New York (Mumbai Indians), Texas Super Kings (Chennai Super Kings) and Seattle Orcas (Delhi Capitals). The other Major League Cricket teams are San Francisco Unicorns and Washington Freedom.
That experience and wealth is crucial to the project's success. On a per-game basis, the IPL is the world’s second most valuable sporting competition after the NFL, which means its broadcasting rights are more lucrative than English football’s Premier League.
Former New Zealand international Corey Anderson will play Major League Cricket (Major League Cricket)"Why now?" Geale asks. "I think ACE, which is our parent company in Major League Cricket, has the right mix of high-network investors who are very smart businesspeople - savvy businesspeople - in their own right. We pair them with some IPL teams... to get that mix of business and sport.
"America doesn't know it needs cricket, but if you look at something like baseball - and I love baseball - but it can be pretty slow. So, we're looking at T20 - about the same duration [as baseball]; high scoring; lots of sixes... While we have an existing cricket market here of fans… if we can drag some new people to the sport, there's such a big opportunity.
"It's the second largest sport in the world - it's the largest sports media market in the world - and if we can make it work, I think it's going to be now. If not now, when?"
Attracting the stars
Another boost for Major League Cricket is the presence of Plunkett and former New Zealand international Corey Anderson, who have become ambassadors for the new competition. Plunkett is also Major League Cricket’s national development coach.
"Liam is crucial to us," explains Geale. "You look at someone like Liam, who's done it all for his country at the highest level. Someone like Corey Anderson, who is really experienced. They've both married American wives, so they've set up their lives here.
"It's so important to have cricket people around. When I got here, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of cricket - but I was really shocked by the [lack of] infrastructure.
"What we really lacked, though, was that cricket experience and knowledge, so having someone like Liam... he's still a great player and I can tell you he's absolutely steaming in at the moment! He's pumped to play Major League Cricket.
"But the experience in terms of coaching - not just our high-performance guys, but just new people to the sport. He's an ambassador, as well. The more guys we drag like that, who are probably towards the end of their playing career, I think he [Plunkett] wouldn't mind me saying that... they've got so much to add from a coaching aspect."
Major League Cricket has also attracted some huge international stars, with the likes of Aaron Finch, Marcus Stoinis, Mitchell Marsh, Quinton de Kock and Anrich Nortje all signing up during the inaugural draft.
More superstars are expected to join before the tournament gets underway, although Geale has dismissed rumours of England batter Jason Roy being handed a £300,000 contract. He laughs, "A little bit inflated... a bit of fake news there, as we say in the USA!"
But the tournament chief admits, "We really will be able to get a lot of the top players - there's a real curiosity about coming to play here. I think our salary cap is going to be pretty competitive, compared to some of the other leagues at the moment.
Quinton de Kock is one of the league's biggest stars (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)"The idea to come and play cricket in a new market, like the US. To spend two or three weeks here and bring the golf clubs and bring your family and actually play some good level cricket. But also, it's a different experience for players.
"To date, we haven't had any trouble attracting some of these top guys."
Plunkett adds, "I still want to test myself against the best players in the world but also help promote the league. We want the best stars - the best players in the world - to come across and see that Major League Cricket is taking this seriously.
"We want it to be here for a long time. We're not just a gimmick - we want it to be a successful franchise league with great competition. Of course, I want the best players to come from all over the world."
English worries
Although Major League Cricket is an exciting venture, there are concerns in England. The inaugural tournament takes place between July 13 and July 30 - just before the peak of the English season in August.
It's squeezed in between the Vitality Blast and The Hundred - England's premier T20 tournaments - and will attract the attention of English white-ball specialists who are not restricted by an England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) contract. Major League Cricket will clash with the Ashes, which has been brought forward to June and July to make way for The Hundred.
Crucially, though, three County Championship games will take place during July. A lot of county players will be tempted to miss those fixtures and head to Dallas, with Major League Cricket offering "competitive" salaries. It's fair to say the counties are not doing the same.
There is a real concern that Major League Cricket will persuade more young players to pursue white-ball only careers. Will Smeed, one of England's most talented young batters, said goodbye to red-ball cricket aged 21 last year.
Packing in the long slog of four-day cricket for a pulsating whack in front of a capacity crowd looks increasingly more appealing. As former England captain Michael Atherton wrote in his column for The Times, "English cricket will be watching nervously."
Geale and Plunkett, though, do not see Major League Cricket as a rival to the English game.
Geale insists, "We’re certainly not here to disrupt or take on world cricket - I'm not going to say that. It's the opposite summer to a lot of the down under countries, so I think we've got a nice little slot. I think they can coexist, there's enough players of good quality going around in the world at the moment."
Plunkett adds, "It's a unique situation because I don't want to dilute English cricket, but I also want to build-up Major League Cricket. So, that [question] is for the powers that be, I'm afraid!"
Major League Cricket would love some of England's white-ball stars to play in the United States (Popperfoto via Getty Images)Yet Major League Cricket is hoping to attract some of England's international stars, many of whom won the 2019 World Cup alongside Plunkett. The bowler admits, "I'd love it to work out with England because obviously I've got a lot of friends there, and the England team is the best white-ball team in the world."
Geale explains, "Realistically, it's unlikely we're going to get red-ball, centrally-contracted ECB players - and that's fine. Their priority needs to be playing for their country.
"Having said that, I think our window... will probably be attractive to some of the white-ball guys. We have had a few of the white-ball guys reach out, and it'll be lovely to have a couple of guys from England because I think we are covered from Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies... we're going to have players from everywhere.
"It'll be nice to have some English guys, obviously, but there's a process and the guys need to look at their country of origin first of all and make sure they're happy there [with their schedules]. Ideally, we'd love to have the guys come out - I think there's a world where they can do both, to be honest."
World Cup and beyond
Geale is hoping Major League Cricket can play an important role in the upcoming T20 World Cup in the West Indies and the United States. The event will take place next June, but the International Cricket Council (ICC) are yet to confirm which venues will be used.
Most of the fixtures for the inaugural Major League Cricket campaign will take place at the Grand Prairie Stadium, a former ballpark which is being converted into a cricket ground. The revamped arena will hold 7,000 spectators and is expandable to 15,000. It would be a huge boost for Major League Cricket's spiritual home to play a part in next year's World Cup.
Geale says, "We'd love our stadium in Dallas to host some matches, and I'm pretty confident it will. We're working really closely with the ICC on that. I think that [competition] and another Major League Cricket season - there's a lot of talk of cricket in the 2028 LA Olympics. You look at those milestones, and that's the progression for the sport [and it's] a really strong one.
"We're incredibly excited about the World Cup. I think it also gives us exposure to a lot of other nations - teams will need somewhere to prepare, they'll come out. They'll be opportunities for the USA national team to play warm-up matches; to show our venues.
"Where I'm in Morrisville now, there's no reason why this wouldn't be a great place for a team to come and spend a couple of weeks and prepare. There's going to be great practice wickets; there's great hotels around. All that sort of stuff really adds to our infrastructure and ability to host international touring teams, which ultimately we'd love to do more of.
"There's no reason once we have the stadiums and people are really embracing the sport, that more tournaments can't be held in the US."
Right now, the future is bright for Major League Cricket. Not everyone will be a fan of it, particularly traditionalists in England, but the new competition’s architects are sitting on a fortune.
All the ingredients are there for franchise cricket to explode in the United States, yet they still have to get this right. They do not want Major League Cricket to be another failed attempt to crack the American market.
Ultimately, only time will tell whether Major League Cricket has lift off… or a problem.
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