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It was an obvious place to launch a sporting moonshot \u2013 a cricket league that can survive and thrive in America.<\/p>\n
Last week, Space Center Houston hosted a reveal of next-generation spacesuits<\/a> for a lunar mission. A few days later its main hall was crowded with cricketers wearing gaudy baseball caps in the colours of their new teams as the latest attempt to bring professional cricket to the US held its domestic player draft.<\/p>\n With the first overall pick, the Seattle Orcas of Major League Cricket<\/a> (MLC) selected an all-rounder: 30-year-old Harmeet Singh, captain of the minor-league Seattle Thunderbolts and a member of the India squad that won the 2012 under-19 World Cup.<\/p>\n Four years after taking three wickets for England in their World Cup final win over New Zealand, Liam Plunkett will bowl for the San Francisco Unicorns. A domestic player because he lives in the Philadelphia area with his American wife, the 37-year-old was chosen in the second round.<\/p>\n Beaming in a suit jacket, white trainers and an orange Unicorns cap, Plunkett posed for the cameras next to the Mission Mars exhibit, a bulbous silvery spacecraft dangling from the ceiling above his head as pop music and a variegated array of glowing lights lent the event a novel atmosphere: sports meets disco meets STEM.<\/p>\n Not quite the Long Room<\/a> at Lord\u2019s. But the inaugural MLC season will boast international talent worthy of the sport\u2019s most hallowed venues. Among Plunkett\u2019s fellow Unicorns are the former New Zealand all-rounder, Corey Anderson, the former Australia limited overs captain, Aaron Finch, and his 2021 Men\u2019s T20 World Cup-winning teammate, Marcus Stoinis.<\/p>\n Another Australian, the in-form Mitch Marsh<\/a>, will play for Seattle, as will the 30-year-old former South Africa captain, Quinton de Kock. Wanindu Hasaranga, a 25-year-old Sri Lankan international, and the South African fast bowler, Anrich Nortje, have signed for the Washington Freedom. More well-known overseas names are set to be announced in the coming days to line up alongside the 54 US-based players drafted on Sunday.<\/p>\n Sheila Jackson Lee, a boosterish Houston congresswoman, opened the ceremony. \u201cAre we ready for cricket?\u201d she inquired. \u201cAre we ready?\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s an open question. American cricket has long been tramelled<\/a> by turbulent governance and earlier attempts at professional leagues struggled to get off the launch pad. But there are strong reasons for optimism, not least the wealth and experience of the MLC investors.<\/p>\n An initial $120m is funding the project, which has some influential backers from the technology and media sectors and India, including Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, who is part of the Seattle ownership group. Owners of Indian Premier League (IPL) clubs have stakes<\/a> in four of the six MLC teams.<\/p>\n The season will take the T20 format and will be played from 13-30 July \u2013 helpful timing to attract stars during the southern hemisphere offseason, though problematic for players in England. Joining the Orcas, Freedom and Unicorns are the Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York and the Texas Super Kings. The locations are strategic: cities with large South Asian communities that offer ready-made fanbases, with organisers recognising that it will take years to attract significant numbers of spectators who have never played or watched cricket.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to build infrastructure, a minor league, a major league, get the national team competitive all at the same time. There\u2019s an awful lot going on and it\u2019s going to take time, but I think our growth trajectory can be quick once \u2026 people see, hey this is a great product, this is going to work. I think we\u2019ll then get a second influx of momentum,\u201d said Justin Geale, the MLC tournament director.<\/p>\n MLC has spent years building a developmental framework to nourish domestic players and improved grounds and training facilities are springing up. The pre-draft combine took place at a six-field complex near Houston that opened in 2019.<\/p>\n Plunkett is convinced there is latent talent in the US. \u201cI [visited] maybe 13 years ago and I always thought to myself I had one of the better arms in cricket in England, and I just went to the local park in Philadelphia with a few of my friends at college or who worked in Home Depot, and I think all four of them had a better arm than me,\u201d he grinned.<\/p>\n