2025 MLC Domestic Draft review, Part 1: USAC and Minor League stars shine

Major League Cricket’s third domestic player draft saw some return heroes, Minor League standouts, and plenty of unexpected surprises. Stay tuned for part two later in the week. 

Major League Cricket’s 2025 rosters continued to take shape last week as 16 American cricketers were selected in this year’s MLC domestic player draft, including 15 from 10 different Minor League Cricket teams, seven with some level of USA international experience, and five aged 24 or younger.

Leading into the third iteration of the MLC domestic draft, the final under the current contract agreement with players, teams had no limit on the number of players they could retain from 2024. That meant that league champion Washington Freedom and runner up San Francisco Unicorns had no pressure to deplete their productive domestic stable, though they released one and two domestic players respectively.

Across the league, 13 mandatory slots opened up. Five of these were from 2023 runners up Seattle Orcas, who surprised fans by releasing 2023 stars Shehan Jayasuriya, Nauman Anwar and Shubham Ranjane. After the Orcas retained only two overseas players, in Proteas batters Heinrich Klassen and Ryan Rickelton, a change in direction was inevitable, but exactly which direction was anybody’s guess.

Early Rounds

Structured like the 2024 draft, teams picked in reverse order of their finish in the table last season. With Seattle in possession of the largest available purse in the league, the Orcas would get the first pick in the domestic draft, needing at least four total picks before the draft’s end. With that first pick, Seattle would announce the direction of their rebuild with the selection of USA fast bowler, Jessy Singh.

After being selected in the 2023 MLC supplemental draft by MI New York and appearing in only one game for the inaugural league champs, Jessy Singh was not retained and went unselected in the 2024 domestic draft. But when fellow USA bowler Saurabh Netravalkar left Washington mid-season for family reasons, Jessy was signed and placed directly into the Freedom attack. He ended up winning two Player of the Match awards in his two matches, taking three wickets in each while helping Washington top the regular season table.

Upon Netravalkar’s return, Jessy was dropped from the Freedom roster, so it was right back in the draft pool for the USA and New Jersey Stallions pacer. At the Orcas, Jessy joins the 2023 Bart King Award winner Cameron Gannon in the pace attack.

After New York passed up a chance to pick in the first round, Texas Super Kings used $75,000 of their $100,000 purse to take former Seattle all rounder Shubham Ranjane, the 13th overall player selected in the 2023 domestic player draft. In nine innings across 12 games for Seattle between 2023 and 2024, Ranjane scored 151 runs at an average of 25.16 and a strike rate of 114.39. However, some of those contributions were important in securing victories for Seattle in their 2023 run to the finals. Ranjane joins Calvin Savage and Matthew Tromp as domestic bat options for TSK in the middle to middle-late order.

The second and third rounds would pass without any team making a pick, until MI New York would double up in the fourth round with a pair of highly regarded batters, Agni Chopra and Tajinder Singh for $50,000 each. 

Born in Detroit, Michigan, 26-year-old Chopra made Ranji Trophy history when he started his first class career with centuries in each of his first four games a year ago. The left-handed opening batter has an average of 94.94 with nine centuries after 20 first class innings for Mizoram, and strikes at 137.61 with four half centuries in 14 T20 innings. Chopra is the only player selected in this year’s draft never to appear in Minor League Cricket.

Tajinder was drafted by San Francisco in the third round in 2023, but was not retained following a disappointing debut season. However, the Unicorns liked what they saw, bringing him back in 2024 via the ninth round, but then released him again leading up to this draft. The versatile batter brings value with the ball as a part time off-spinner, and has dominated in Minor League Cricket, helping his Chicago Kingsmen claim the 2024 MiLC title with superb batting performances.

Orcas triple up

Seattle would take the next three bites in rounds five, seven and eight, selecting batters in each spot, with Sujit Nayak, Steven Taylor and Shayan Jahangir joining retained USA stars Aaron Jones, Harmeet Singh and Ali Sheikh as batting options.

Nayak, 35, has been selected in the IPL for the Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals in 2012 and 2013. The left-handed batter and spinner stood out for the Seattle Thunderbolts in Minor League Cricket during their Super Eight playoff campaign in 2024. 

Taylor and Jahangir need little introduction to American cricket fans. Both are veterans of the USA men’s team and featured in the 2024 ICC T20 Men’s World Cup. New York’s first round choice in 2023, Taylor struggled in his two MLC seasons and was not retained, and saw himself dropped this summer from the national squad. He found form quickly in MiLC at the end of the summer, culminating with centuries on back to back days for Atlanta Fire to end the 2024 campaign. He’s been included in USA’s T20 side currently touring Oman.

Jahangir, also a 2023 MI New York selection, was unable to build on the promise from his first MLC season, where he scored 164 runs at an average of 23.42 with a high score of 41. His average dipped to 9.5 with a high score of only 26 in 2024 and he was not retained. “Father Shay” rebounded in October for USA with a pair of 60 run innings in T20is as well as an ODI century against Nepal in Dallas.

New York would make two of the next three picks, selecting a pair of batters from MiLC’s Baltimore Royals with Kunwarjeet Singh in the eighth round and Sharad Lumba in the ninth. Lumba, 35, had been auctioned to Mumbai Indians in 2018, but did not appear in a game. In this year’s MiLC Super Eight, he scored 131 runs in three innings at a strike rate of 170 for Baltimore. Kunwarjeet showed his class by scoring 90 runs for the Royals against the Fort Lauderdale Lions at Church Street Park, and showed flashes during the Super Eight.

Sandwiched between the New York selections, Los Angeles Knight Riders finally made their lone selection with 24 year old left arm orthodox bowler from Houston Hurricanes, Karthik Gattepalli. 

“It goes beyond just my hard work”

Gattepalli was at his home in bed on Wednesday night when he received the notification of his selection. “ I was watching the highlights for the Champions Trophy game,” Gattepalli told Emerging Cricket. “And then I just had an email notification at a strange time. So I figured it was either a spam email or something very, very important.” Though he stood out on the USA U19 Men’s team in 2017, Gattepalli credits his experiences with Houston Hurricanes in Minor League, playing alongside the likes of Ali Khan and Usman Rafiq, with helping him realize his potential.

“ I didn’t know that I had the capabilities that I did until Minor League happened. It was an eye opener for me, playing with and playing against some international players and some really high quality players, that was the first time,” he said of the 26 team domestic league. “So it really provided me with a pathway. It also showed that there’s a skill set and a set of talent not only in me, but across the country, which was great.”

A financial analyst in his home town of Dallas, Gattepalli anxiously awaits the chance to play in front of family and friends so close to his home at Grand Prairie stadium, host venue for the vast majority of MLC games in seasons one and two.

“I’d be lying if I said that I could get any sleep after the news. It goes beyond just my hard work and what I put in. There’s a lot of time and sacrifice that my parents made, along with my family members and loved ones. Having the chance to be playing at home and having them there, it’s just a way for me to give back to them.”

“I think there’s no better and greater feeling than having them there, seeing a smile on their face and seeing how proud they are for the amount of work that they’ve put in to help me be where I’m at now.”

Value in the late rounds

With the final pick in the 9th round, Texas Super Kings took recent USA Cricket international debutant, left-arm fast bowler Steven Wiig of the New Jersey Stallions. In 154.4 overs across 46 career Minor League Cricket innings, Wiig has grabbed 59 wickets at an economy of 6.70 for the perennial contender New Jersey Stallions in the East Division. Wiig’s ability to take wickets in the power play and at the death contributed to his reputation as a clutch performer with a ability to bowl wide yorkers accurately. At TSK, he will join NJ Stallions and USA teammate Sai Mukkamalla.

Closing out the “senior” portion of the draft in round ten, San Francisco drafted MLC veteran allrounder Hammad Azam and Washington selected USA veteran left arm fast bowler, Abhishek Paradkar.

While Azam has failed to produce at the MLC level in two seasons with New York and Seattle, his reputation as a valuable all rounder and top notch captain was strengthened by a good finish in the 2024 Minor League Cricket season. The 2021 MiLC MVP struggled through a regular season with Chicago Kingsmen averaging only 13.75 with the bat. However, he finished the year with an incredible Player of the Match performance in the MiLC Final. With Chicago down five wickets requiring 74 to win from only 47 balls, Azam dominated the East Bay Blazers bowling with a scorching knock of 53 from 23 balls to seal the title for the Kingsmen.

Paradkar was in the midst of his best MiLC season in 2024 but missed out on the Super Eight while on tour with USA Cricket in Windhoek. A former fixture on the Silicon Valley Strikers team along with fellow USA and Washington Freedom bowler Netravalkar, Paradkar helped East Bay Blazers to the top of the West table and has 41 wickets in 31 career games at an economy of 7.34. He joins Washington’s domestic fast bowling troupe of Netravalkar, Justin Dill and Ian Holland, as Freedom fill off-spinner Akhilesh Bodugum’s vacancy with fast bowling depth.

Stay tuned for part two of the 2025 MLC Domestic Draft review. Part two will cover the “Rookie Round”. For more, check out our latest Big Innings podcast. 

You’re reading Emerging Cricket — brought to you by a passionate group of volunteers with a vision for cricket to be a truly global sport, and a mission to inspire passion to grow the game.

Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, please subscribe for regular updates, and follow EC on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Don’t know where to start? Check out our features list, country profiles, and subscribe to our podcast. Support us from US$2 a month — and get exclusive benefits, by becoming an EC Patron.