Minor League Cricket announces teams and owners list, draft on August 22, exhibition games tentative

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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