Major League Cricket is the league that gave American cricket a professional home. Before it arrived, the United States had a national team, a scattering of grounds and a lot of enthusiasm, but no regular, high-quality domestic competition of its own. MLC changed that in the summer of 2023. Six city teams, a short, sharp season in June and July, and a mix of world-class overseas players and American domestic cricketers turned a sport that many Americans barely knew into something you could actually follow week after week.
This guide covers the whole league in one place: what MLC is and who runs it, how it has grown season by season, the six teams and what each one stands for, how the format works, where the matches are played, the players who have shaped it, how to watch it, and what it means for the USA national team. It ends with what comes next, including the expansion that is planned but not yet final. If you are new to the league, start here. If you already follow it, the season-by-season record and the team-by-team section are the parts you will come back to.
The short version is this. MLC is a professional Twenty20 league in the United States, organised by American Cricket Enterprises and sanctioned by USA Cricket. It began in 2023 with six teams and, after four completed seasons, has had three different champions: MI New York in 2023 and 2025, Washington Freedom in 2024, and Los Angeles Knight Riders in 2026. It is played in the American summer, it is built around a simple idea — at least six USA-based players in every playing eleven — and it is now the main route by which American players reach the national team.
What is Major League Cricket?
Major League Cricket, usually shortened to MLC cricket, is a franchise Twenty20 competition played in the United States. Each match follows the standard T20 format: twenty overs a side, a result in about three hours, and a points table that decides who reaches the playoffs. For sponsorship reasons the league has also been known as Cognizant Major League Cricket, after Cognizant became title sponsor from the 2024 season.
The league is organised by American Cricket Enterprises, known as ACE, and sanctioned by USA Cricket, the governing body for the sport in the country. That distinction matters. USA Cricket runs the national teams, while ACE runs the league under a long-term agreement with it. The structure is a single-entity model: the league itself owns the competition, and each team is run by an investor-operator group rather than as a fully independent club. It is the same kind of model used by other American sports leagues, and it was chosen deliberately, because American cricket did not have six wealthy, established clubs waiting to join a league. It had to build them.
MLC also oversees Minor League Cricket, a developmental competition that began in 2021, two years before the main league. Minor League Cricket is where many American domestic players first get noticed. The pathway is meant to work in stages: local and Minor League cricket, then an MLC squad, then, for the best players, the national team. That pathway is still young, but it is already the clearest route American cricket has ever had from club cricket to the international game.
In May 2024 the International Cricket Council granted the tournament official List A status, which meant MLC matches and their records counted as official T20 statistics. For a league in an associate nation, that was a significant stamp of approval. It put MLC on the same footing, in statistical terms, as the established domestic T20 leagues around the world, and it made performances in the league count for something beyond the season itself.
History and Seasons
American cricket had tried professional leagues before. Pro Cricket played a single season in 2004 and disappeared. What made MLC different was timing and backing. By the early 2020s there was serious investment, a growing South Asian and Caribbean audience in the United States, and a T20 World Cup coming to American soil in 2024. The first season was announced for July 2023, the inaugural player draft was held in March 2023, and play began on 13 July 2023.
The first season was deliberately small: six teams, a single round-robin, and 19 matches in total, played over about three weeks at Grand Prairie Stadium in Texas and Church Street Park in Morrisville, North Carolina. MI New York won it, beating Seattle Orcas by seven wickets in the final at Grand Prairie on 30 July 2023. Nicholas Pooran's unbeaten 137 from 55 balls in that final remains the defining innings of the league's early years.
The second season, in July 2024, was bigger and more confident. Washington Freedom, captained by Steve Smith, dominated it and beat San Francisco Unicorns by 96 runs in the final, again at Grand Prairie. That margin is still the largest in an MLC final. The season also came just after the 2024 T20 World Cup, which the United States had co-hosted, and the league benefited directly from the attention that tournament had brought.
The third season, in June and July 2025, was the first to use the expanded format described below: 34 matches instead of 19. MI New York won their second title, beating Washington Freedom by five runs in a close final. The hero was a young American bowler, Rushil Ugarkar, whose death bowling at the end of the match dismissed Rachin Ravindra and Glenn Maxwell. It was the kind of moment the league was built for: a domestic player deciding a final against international stars.
The fourth season, from 18 June to 18 July 2026, produced a new champion. Los Angeles Knight Riders, who had struggled in the early seasons, beat Washington Freedom by one run in the final at the Oakland Coliseum, with Sunil Narine named player of the match and player of the series. Washington Freedom's third final in a row, and third different champion in four seasons, told its own story: no team has been able to dominate this league for long.
That table is worth keeping in mind when reading the rest of this guide. MI New York remain the only team with two titles, Washington Freedom have reached three finals, and every other team is still chasing a first championship.
MLC Teams
MLC has had the same six teams since its first season. Each one is based in a different part of the country, and each has a distinct identity, shaped largely by who owns it. Four of the six have links to Indian Premier League ownership groups, which is one reason the league was able to attract big names from th
MI New York are backed by the Mumbai Indians ownership group, through Indiawin Sports. They are the league's most successful team, with titles in 2023 and 2025, and their captain in recent seasons has been Nicholas Pooran, whose final innings in 2023 set the standard for the league. Despite the New York name, the team has not had a permanent home ground of its own in the early seasons, playing its home matches at the league's shared venues.
San Francisco Unicorns are owned by Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan. They reached the final in 2024, losing to Washington Freedom, but have not yet won the title. They represent the Bay Area, and in 2026 they made headlines by signing Ravichandran Ashwin, the first India-capped player to feature in the league.
Seattle Orcas are run by a Seattle investor group that includes Satya Nadella, with the GMR Group, co-owners of Delhi e start.
Los Angeles Knight Riders are owned by the Knight Riders Group, the group behind Kolkata Knight Riders. Based in California, they moved into their own ground at Fairplex in Pomona in 2026, the first purpose-built home of an MLC franchise, and won their first title in that same season. Their colours and branding follow the Knight Riders family, and Sunil Narine has been central to their story.
Capitals, as operating partner. They were runners-up in the first season, losing to MI New York, and have remained competitive without yet lifting the trophy. Marcus Stoinis captained the side in 2026.
Texas Super Kings are partnered with Chennai Super Kings, with Anurag Jain and Ross Perot Jr. among the backers. Based at Grand Prairie Stadium, they are in many ways the league's home team, playing in the ground that has hosted more MLC matches than any other. Faf du Plessis has captained the side, and they have been among the most consistent teams without yet reaching a final.
Washington Freedom are owned by Sanjay Govil. They are the league's great nearly team of recent years: champions in 2024, runners-up in 2025 and again in 2026. Captained by Steve Smith and coached by Ricky Ponting in recent seasons, they have had one of the strongest squads in the competition, built around Glenn Maxwell, Lockie Ferguson and a strong American core, but have now lost two finals in a row by narrow margins.
Format and Rules
MLC cricket is played as a Twenty20 competition, and its format has grown with the league. In the first season, the six teams played each other once, for 15 league matches plus four playoff matches, 19 in total. From the 2025 season onwards, the league moved to a double round-robin: each team plays every other team twice, for 10 league matches per team and 30 league matches in total, plus four playoff matches, making 34 matches in a season. That change matters for fans, because it means every team gets a return fixture and the points table has time to take shape.
The points system is simple. A win is worth two points, a no-result or abandoned match is worth one point, and a loss is worth nothing. If teams finish level on points, net run rate decides the order. That is the same tiebreaker used in most T20 leagues, and it is why close wins and heavy defeats both matter in the final week of the league stage.
The top four teams on the points table reach the playoffs. The playoff structure is borrowed from the Indian Premier League. In Qualifier 1, the top two teams play each other, and the winner goes straight to the final. In the Eliminator, the third and fourth teams play each other, and the loser is out. The loser of Qualifier 1 then plays the winner of the Eliminator in Qualifier 2, and the winner of that match takes the second place in the final. It rewards finishing first or second, because those teams get a second chance, but it keeps the door open for a team that finishes fourth and finds form at the right time. MI New York's title wins in 2023 and 2025 both came after finishing fourth in the league stage, which tells you how much the playoff system matters.
Squad rules are designed to protect American players. In recent seasons, squads have been between 15 and 18 players, with up to nine overseas players allowed in a squad. The key rule is in the playing eleven: at least six players must be USA-based. Overseas stars are signed directly by franchises, while domestic players are largely acquired through a draft. That balance is the whole point of the league. Without the overseas players, the standard would drop and the crowds would be smaller. Without the domestic minimum, American players would sit on the bench and learn nothing. The rule forces teams to develop, and to play, local talent.
Venues
In its first two seasons, MLC was essentially a two-ground league. Grand Prairie Stadium in Grand Prairie, Texas, a converted baseball ground near Dallas, was the main venue, and Church Street Park in Morrisville, North Carolina, was the second. Grand Prairie also hosted matches at the 2024 T20 World Cup, including the United States' famous win over Pakistan, and it remains the spiritual home of the league.
The venue map widened in 2025. That season added the Oakland Coliseum in California, the former home of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, and Central Broward Park in Lauderhill, Florida, which had long been the United States' main international cricket ground. Church Street Park did not return in 2025. The change reflected a simple reality: a national league needs to be seen in more than two places.
In 2026 the league's principal venues were Grand Prairie Stadium, the Oakland Coliseum, which hosted the final for the first time, and the new Knight Riders Cricket Ground at Fairplex in Pomona, California, which opened on 1 July 2026 and hosted its first MLC matches that season. That ground is also scheduled to host cricket at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, which gives it a significance beyond MLC itself.
For fans planning a trip, the practical point is that venues change from season to season, and a ground used one year may not be used the next. Check the official schedule for the season you want to attend rather than assuming last year's venues will return. The one constant so far has been Grand Prairie, which has been at the centre of every season.
Star Players and American Players
MLC's appeal has always rested on two groups of players: the international stars who give the league its quality, and the American players who give it its purpose. The stars came first in the headlines. Nicholas Pooran's 137 not out in the 2023 final, Steve Smith captaining Washington Freedom to the 2024 title, Sunil Narine's all-round performances for Los Angeles Knight Riders in 2026, and the long list of established names — Rashid Khan, Trent Boult, Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Faf du Plessis, Andre Russell — who have played in the league, gave American audiences a reason to watch from the start. As of the end of the 2026 season, Pooran was the league's leading run-scorer overall, with 1,352 runs, and Boult its leading wicket-taker, with 54 wickets.
The American players are the longer story. Monank Patel, the USA captain, plays for MI New York. Steven Taylor, the longest-serving member of the modern national side, has been part of the league since its start. Saurabh Netravalkar, the USA bowling leader, has played for Washington Freedom, including taking key wickets in their 2026 campaign. Andries Gous, who was the USA's leading run-scorer at the 2024 T20 World Cup, is another national-team regular whose MLC performances keep him in the selectors' view.
Then there are the younger American names the league is meant to uncover. Rushil Ugarkar's match-winning death bowling in the 2025 final is the best example so far: a domestic bowler, in his early twenties, trusted with the last overs of a final against international batters, and delivering. Sanjay Krishnamurthi, Saiteja Mukkamalla and other USA-based players have likewise used MLC as a shop window, playing alongside and against players they would otherwise only watch on television. Not every domestic player who plays in MLC becomes a national-team regular, and the league is honest about that. Its value is that it gives selectors a proper form guide: performances in a professional league, against professional opposition, rather than in club cricket alone.
One balance is worth stating plainly. Most of MLC's star players are overseas professionals, and that will remain true while the league is young. The test of the league is not whether American players dominate it today, but whether, season by season, more of them earn places on merit, hold those places, and then carry that experience into international cricket. On that measure, the signs are encouraging, but the work is far from finished.
Schedule, Tickets and How to Watch
MLC is a summer league. Its seasons have been played in June and July, timed to avoid a direct clash with the Indian Premier League and, as far as possible, with The Hundred, so that overseas players are available. The 2025 season ran from 12 June to 13 July, and the 2026 season from 18 June to 18 July. That June-July window is the pattern to expect, but the exact dates for the next season were not available at the time of writing, and no fixture list is given here for that reason. When the league confirms its schedule, it will be added to the separate national team and league schedule guide in this series.
In the United States and Canada, MLC matches have been broadcast by Willow, now known as Willow by Cricbuzz, which has been the main home of the league in North America. Selected matches have also been shown on other channels and streaming services, including CBS Sports Network in the first season and regional sports networks for individual teams in later seasons. Internationally, broadcasters have included Sky Sports in the UK and Ireland, Star Sports and JioHotstar in India, and other partners in Australia, Pakistan and New Zealand. Broadcast arrangements can change from season to season, so check the official MLC website close to the start of a season for the confirmed list for your country.
Tickets are sold through the league and the venues, and prices vary by ground, match and seating area. No ticket prices are given here, because they change every season and any figure quoted now would be out of date by the time the next season starts. The practical advice is simple: buy through official channels, check the venue's own information for seating and access, and remember that the biggest matches, especially the final, sell out first.
For fans outside the United States, the time difference is part of the experience. Matches are mostly played in the American evening, which means early mornings in India and late nights or early hours in parts of Asia and Australia. That is also why the league's highlights and replays matter as much as the live broadcast for much of its global audience.
MLC and the USA National Team
The link between MLC and the USA national team is the reason this guide sits in the USA cricket series, and it is worth spelling out, because it is easy to treat a franchise league as separate from international cricket. In the United States, the two are deliberately connected.
First, MLC gives national-team players regular professional cricket. Before the league, an American international might go months between competitive matches. Now, the core of the national side plays a full T20 season every summer against international opposition, in front of crowds, under broadcast pressure. That is the closest thing to a domestic first-class or List A system that American cricket has, and it shows in results: the USA team that beat Pakistan at the 2024 T20 World Cup and won the Cricket World Cup League 2 title in 2026 was, in large part, a team hardened by MLC seasons.
Second, MLC gives selectors evidence. A player who performs in Minor League Cricket earns an MLC chance. A player who performs in MLC earns a national-team conversation. That chain is not automatic, and playing well in a franchise league does not guarantee an international place, but it is a far stronger basis for selection than club form alone.
Third, the league supports the wider structure. Its venues, its coaching staffs and its academies are part of the infrastructure American cricket needs for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where cricket returns to the Games for the first time since 1900. The Knight Riders ground at Pomona, built for MLC and scheduled for Olympic use, is the clearest example of that overlap.
The full story of the national team itself, from the first international match in 1844 to the League 2 title in 2026, is covered in the pillar article in this series, the US Cricket Team Complete Guide. The players who make up that team, and how the current squad is put together, are covered in the separate USA team players and squad guide that follows this one.
Future of MLC
The most concrete plan for MLC's future is expansion. The league has said it plans to grow from six teams to eight teams by 2027, and to ten teams by 2031. That is a plan, not yet a completed fact, and the details matter: new teams need grounds, owners and players, and none of those appear overnight.
One new franchise is further advanced than the rest. In April 2025, New Zealand Cricket agreed terms with True North Sports Ventures to launch a new MLC franchise that would debut in the 2027 season, with New Zealand Cricket providing high-performance and operational support, including coaching and management staff. It was described as the first agreement of its kind between a full member of the International Cricket Council and a franchise in a professional league. Toronto and Atlanta were among the cities under consideration as a base for that team. At the time of writing, the team's name and its final home city were not confirmed, and they are not stated here as if they were.
Other cities have also been mentioned in expansion reporting, including Chicago, Philadelphia and Atlanta, all with large cricket-loving populations. Those are candidates under discussion, not confirmed franchises, and they should be read that way. The league's own leadership has said expansion decisions will be taken closer to launch, once stadium and market questions are settled.
Beyond team numbers, the other question for MLC's future is whether it can become a true home-and-away league, with every team playing in its own city, rather than a league centred on a small number of shared venues. That is the long-term ambition, and it depends on grounds being built, not just announced. The Pomona ground is a step in that direction. Whether other cities follow will decide whether MLC remains a compact summer tournament or becomes something closer to a national league in the full sense.
What is not in doubt is the opportunity. Cricket at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 will put the sport in front of an American audience that has never watched it before. If MLC is strong, well-attended and producing American players by then, it will benefit more than any other part of the American game. If it is not, the Olympic moment may pass without leaving much behind. That is the stakes for the next two seasons.
FAQs
What is Major League Cricket?
Major League Cricket is the professional Twenty20 franchise league of the United States, launched in 2023. It has six teams, is organised by American Cricket Enterprises and sanctioned by USA Cricket, and is played every summer in June and July.
How many teams are in MLC?
Six: Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas, Texas Super Kings and Washington Freedom. Expansion to eight teams by 2027 is planned, but new teams have not yet been confirmed beyond the New Zealand Cricket-backed franchise described above.
Who has won MLC?
MI New York won in 2023 and 2025, Washington Freedom won in 2024, and Los Angeles Knight Riders won in 2026. MI New York are the only team with two titles.
When is the MLC season played?
In June and July each year. The 2026 season ran from 18 June to 18 July. Dates for the next season were not available at the time of writing.
How can I watch MLC?
In the United States and Canada, matches have been broadcast by Willow, now Willow by Cricbuzz. Other countries have their own broadcasters, which can change from season to season, so check the official MLC website before a season starts.
Does MLC help the USA national team?
Yes, that is one of its main purposes. At least six USA-based players must be in every playing eleven, which gives American players professional matches against international opposition, and gives national selectors a proper form guide. Many of the current USA national team play in MLC.
Conclusion
In four seasons, Major League Cricket has gone from an idea to an established part of American cricket. It has produced three different champions, a one-run final, a final decided by a young American bowler, and a league in which the best players in the world share a dressing room with players who learned the game in American club cricket. It has also done something less dramatic but more important: it has given the United States a domestic season, a set of grounds, and a pathway from Minor League Cricket to the national team.
The challenges are still real. The league needs more of its own grounds, more American players earning places on merit, and a successful expansion that does not stretch it too thin. The next two seasons, leading into the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, will show whether it can meet them.
For the wider story, read the pillar article in this series, the US Cricket Team Complete Guide, which covers the national team from 1844 to the League 2 title in 2026. For live scores and results, follow the USA team page on cricvic.com and the live cricket scores page. The supporting guides that follow this one — on USA team players and squad, the women's team, the Under-19 team, cricket in USA, and the national team schedule — will link from the relevant sections above as they are published.