West Indies’ Nicholas Pooran captains MI New York in the Major League Cricket. (Photo: AFP)
A fairly new, but very exciting professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket tournament is currently underway in the United States and odds are offered on every match by JustBet. Comprising of six teams, competing in a double round-robin and play-off format, Major League Cricket (MLC), which started on June 12 and runs through to July 13, is organised by American Cricket Enterprises (ACE) and sanctioned by USA Cricket.
Founded in 2023, MLC operates as a single entity under which all teams are owned by ACE and the six city-based franchises are operated by individual groups of investors. The league’s six teams are the Texas Super Kings, Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas, and Washington Freedom, with plans to increase the number of franchises over the next few years. One can only assume that the expansion will depend on the economic viability of the league, but MLC also operates a developmental league, Minor League Cricket (MiLC), which launched ahead of MLC in 2021. It consists of 26 franchise-based teams in four regional divisions, but unlike MLC, MiLC operates with privately owned franchises.
In May 2024, the International Cricket Council (ICC) granted the tournament official ‘List A’ status, resulting in the official recognition of the tournament as a “T20 league” and the playing records being counted as official format statistics. The first two seasons were held in the month of July, but the organisers moved the start of the 2025 season to June, to reduce the overlap with other leagues, and expanded the fixtures from 19 to a 34-match season. New York won the 2023 season, defeating Seattle by seven wickets, and Washington is the current defending champion, after overpowering San Francisco by 96 runs last year.
A minimum of 16 and a maximum of 19 players can be selected by teams with a cap of nine overseas players. There are currently 13 players from the West Indies competing in the tournament, with a high of five on the Los Angeles team to a low of zero in Washington, the only team without a player from the Caribbean. Two Jamaicans – Rovman Powell and Andre Russell – ply their trade with the Knight Riders and are teammates with Sunil Narine (Trinidad), Andre Fletcher (Grenada) and Jason Holder (Barbados). Notably, Kieron Pollard and Nicholas Pooran – both from Trinidad – play for the New York franchise, Shimron Hetmyer (Guyana), Kyle Mayers (Barbados), and Obed McCoy (St Vincent) are with the Orcas, while Raj Nannan (Guyana) rolls with the Kings, and Jahmar Hamilton (Anguilla) and Sherfane Rutherford (Guyana) show for the Unicorns.
Additionally, players from the other traditional cricket-playing nations are currently drafted in the league, including England, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, India, New Zealand, and a single player from Zimbabwe (Sikandar Raza). Of note is one naturalised American, Lahiru Milantha, who was born in Sri Lanka, along with seven drafted players from Afghanistan, whose participation were thrown into uncertainty following a travel ban by President Donald Trump, which came into effect on June 9, and restricts entry into the United States for nationals from 12 countries, including Afghanistan. However, the order includes a clause exempting “any athlete or member of an athletic team…travelling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event as determined by the Secretary of State”, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated MLC as a major sporting event, which cleared the path for these players.
JustBet offers over 70 possible betting options for each game, including LIVE betting and player props, and the league’s website (https://www.majorleaguecricket.com) offers a host of statistical information to aid in bet selection. Similar to most other T20 tournaments, the matchups offer a faster-paced game, compared to traditional formats like Test cricket or even One-Day Internationals. The typical T20 game is completed in about three and a half hours, which is close to the timespan of other popular team sports in the USA and should therefore gain traction in North America.
The inaugural season saw 70,000 spectators (3,684 per game), while each game this season is averaging over 6,000 spectators. If the attendance holds true throughout the tournament, the league is looking at more than 200,000 spectators for the season, almost 200 per cent over where they started. That said, stadiums that are designed to host 50 or 60 thousand spectators look very empty with only 6,000, but the fact that the crowds are growing is a very good sign for MLC and its franchises.
This weekend, the last set of round-robin games will be played to complete the fixtures before the play-offs begin on Tuesday, July 8, leading up to the final on Sunday, July 13. JustBet continues to offer attractive betting options on all popular sports and events (including virtual games) as soon as they become available. Please visit one of the over 130 locations (or visit www.supremegames.com/#/prelive) for details and place your bets on the prediction of your choice for maximum winnings…… Get in the GAME!
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