Church Street Park in Morrisville, North Carolina
After a summer of regular changes to the Minor League Cricket timetable, the league has finally made an announcement with some permanence. On Saturday USA Cricket announced the 24 franchises and owners of Minor League Cricket, only one of which is listed as fully owned by the league (Sacramento). Team names range from the refreshingly relevant Philadelphians and Morrisville Cardinals, to the curious Atlanta Param Veers, a reference to India’s highest military honour.
The field of 24 has been announced one week before the new August 22 date for the official Minor League Cricket draft, and includes some notable owners such as former USACA board members, former national team cricketers, CPL franchise owners, and a few LLCs with no names attached. The draft date was recently moved back in order to “provide teams with additional time to evaluate players and allow further planning in advance of the Draft,” per the announcement.
Tentative exhibition games are being planned for September and October, perhaps in time for the return of the six ICC Americas players currently in Trinidad for the Caribbean Premier League, depending on Minor League Cricket’s quarantine guidelines. The CPL has taken great measures to ensure the safety of players and staff, requiring overseas players to arrive two weeks prior to the competition and quarantine in their hotels. CPL will stage two games per day between only two Trinidad venues, a bubble approach which will expedite the league schedule and increase viewership in India, due to the earlier local start times and the time zone difference. Minor League Cricket has yet to announce their own Covid-19 related protocols, outside of the fact that travel would be limited to inter-division teams, and that the exhibition “matches will only proceed in conjunction with all local, county, and state authorities’ guidelines.”
The full list of teams, their cities and owners, as per the USA Cricket release is as follows;
| Eastern Conference | ||
| Home City | Team Name | Team Owners |
| Boston | New England Eagles | Ravi Rao Jack Patel Nitin Mewada Pawan Daruri Ravi Uppalapati |
| New Jersey | New Jersey Somerset Cavaliers Cricket Club | Aslam Khan Muhammad Nisar Ahmed |
| New Jersey | New Jersey Stallions | Venu Palaparthi Ravikumar Suri |
| New York | Empire State Titans | Empire State Cricket LLC |
| Philadelphia | The Philadelphians | William (Ernie) Precious Murali Kailashnath Santhosh Kandasamy Mayurnath Sankar Rao Sathya Narayana C.V Jaisri Murahari |
| Washington DC | DC Hawks | Rajit Passey |
| Western Conference | ||
| Home City | Team Name | Team Owners |
| Bay Peninsula | Silicon Valley Strikers | bInfinite, LLC |
| East Bay | Bay Blazers | Premkumar Suri and Partners |
| Los Angeles | Hollywood Master Blasters | Janak Patel |
| Los Angeles | SoCal Lashings | Abhimanyu Rajp Deepak Gosain |
| Sacramento | Golden State Grizzlies | Major League Cricket |
| San Diego | San Diego Surf Riders | Rajinder S. Ghai Gangaram Singh Sanjit Menezes Jimmy Anklesaria Ram Madabushi |
| Central Conference | ||
| Home City | Team Name | Team Owners |
| Austin | Austin Athletics | Manish Patel and Partners |
| Chicago | Chicago Blasters | Iftekhar Shareef Khurram Syed American Cricket Academy and Club |
| Chicago | Chicago Catchers | Cricket management group LLC |
| Dallas | Irving Mustangs | Lovkesh Kalia |
| Houston | Houston Hurricanes | Tanweer Ahmed |
| Michigan | Michigan Cricket Stars | Nabeel Ahmed |
| Southern Conference | ||
| Home City | Team Name | Team Owners |
| Atlanta | Atlanta Fire | Mohammed Hasan Tarek |
| Atlanta | Atlanta Param Veers | Jayesh Patel |
| Ft. Lauderdale | Ft. Lauderdale Lions | Krishna Persaud |
| Miami | Florida Beamers | Cricket management group LLC |
| Morrisville | Morrisville Cardinals | Praveen Chakraraj and Partners |
| Orlando | Orlando Galaxy | Rahul Joshi Kunal Patel Ravi Panchal Mangesh Chaudhari |
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