2025 Major League Cricket Preview
The third season of Major League Cricket is about to get underway and this promises to be the biggest and boldest version of the league to date. Each team will play ten matches (as opposed to seven each in 2024 and five each in 2023). And the number of venues they'll be battling it out in has increased to three. While, sadly, the beautiful cricket ground in Morrisville, North Carolina won't be hosting any matches, the league is excited about opening the season in the recently repurposed Oakland Coliseum. League games will also be played at Broward County Stadium in Lauderhill, Florida -- a dedicated cricket ground that was used in last year's World Cup and that's also hosted CPL matches -- and at Grand Prairie Stadium in Grand Prairie, Texas, where the league has played in each of its prior two seasons.
On the negative side, a Trump administration ban on travel from Afghanistan coupled with a busy international cricket schedule going on right now -- Australia versus South Africa in the World Test Championship Final and England hosting a Test series against India -- means that there are a lot of foreign players who will either have a reduced role this year or will miss the MLC season entirely.
The league will be facing a lot of questions when it gets underway on Thursday, but maybe the biggest question of all is who will be hoisting the championship trophy on July 13th.
Washington Freedom
These days, most of the world associates Washington DC with chaos, unpredictability, and incompetence. In the alternate universe of T20 cricket, though, the DC area has been synonymous with calm, consistency, and success. The Washington Freedom have arguably been the most consistent MLC team in the league's two-year history and they have the 2024 title trophy to show for it.
The Freedom will have an uphill battle this year. Their openers last year, Steve Smith and Travis Head, combined for almost 700 runs. (The rest of the team, combined, scored less than 600.) This year, Smith will be limited to just a couple of games while Head will miss the season entirely. That's a lot of runs to make up. The Freedom is hoping that Glenn Phillips will help fill the void caused by Head's absence. Phillips was a solid contributor to Washington's offense in 2023, but didn't play for the team last year and -- to add to the uncertainty -- is coming off an injury sustained in the recently-completed IPL.
On the other side of the ball, the Freedom have a tall hole to fill with the absence of 6' 9" Marco Jansen. The team is hoping that some of those overs can be covered by Australian Jason Behrendorff's left-armed medium pace, but -- overall -- it looks like an awful lot of things have to go right for the Freedom to again be among the league's elite.
Projected Finish: Fourth
San Francisco Unicorns
The Unicorns went from being an also-ran, non-playoff team in 2023 to playing in the championship game in 2024. So, not only do they have momentum on their side, they also have an amazing new home to play in. The rejiggered Oakland Coliseum will host the first round of MLC games this season and it will give cricket fans in the Bay Area a chance to see their home team up close and personal.
If you're looking for value for your MLC fantasy team -- and why wouldn't you be? -- look no further than the Unicorns' Hassan Khan and Sanjay Krishnamurthi. Khan was among the leaders in both wickets-taken and economy last year and, with the bat, put up over 200 runs at a strike rate of 143. Krishnamurthi, just 22 years old, was a solid contributor on offense last season and could be coming into a breakout year.
A major loss this year is Pat Cummins, who will miss the season to play internationally for Australia. San Francisco spread the overs around last year, so they have ample arms in Brody Couch, Carmi le Roux, and Liam Plunkett to help out Khan and Pakistani quick Haris Rauf.
Projected Finish: Third
Texas Super Kings
With the Freedom’s opening batting in question, that leaves the Super Kings with the top pair of openers in the league. Last year, Faf du Plessis and Devon Conway put up crazy numbers. But that same pair put up far less impressive stats in 2023, with Faf’s 85 strike rate literally being half of what it would be in 2024.
If TSK can ride Faf and Conway, they should, once again, be a solid team. But if things go south at the top of the order, the world might get more complicated. In what could be a trial by fire, youngsters Joshua Tromp and Sai Mukkamalla could be counted on for some offensive punch. Tromp put up 94 runs for Texas last year, including a 56 not out against San Francisco. Twenty-one-year-old Sai Mukkamalla has been a bright spot for Team USA and in 18 international T20s, he's averaged over 40 runs a game at a strike rate over 150.
The Super Kings have been one of the most consistent teams in the league over the past two years and have developed a strong fan base. (And they might have even more fans if they got rid of those annoying whistles.) If things fall into place, this may be the year that fan base gets rewarded.
Projected Finish: First
MI New York
MINY has finished the regular season in fourth place each of the last two seasons. In 2023, they were able to run the table in the playoffs and take home the title. Last year, they were bounced in the first eliminator. This year, however, there's not a lot pointing toward another fourth-place finish and a trip to the playoffs.
Even though the season hasn't started yet, this has been a wild week for MINY. Newly named captain, Nicholas Pooran, who angered West Indies fans by skipping the Windies tour of England, officially announced his retirement from international play to concentrate on franchise T20. Theoretically, a rested Pooran would be a good thing for the New Yorkers, but that news was quickly eclipsed by the announcement from Rashid Khan that he would be missing the season entirely. Rashid was the backbone of the squad last year, amazingly leading the team in both bowling economy and batting strike rate. Scrambling to fill those shoes the day before the season starts is not what MINY was planning on.
But even before this week, NY had thrown things into a state of confusion. Run production was poised to take a hit with the loss of Dewald Brevis and Romario Shepherd. And the bowling attack had already been weakened due to the loss of the insanely fast Anrich Nortje and the equally insanely fast Kagiso Rabada.
To make up for the loss of overs from Khan, Nortje, and Rabada (as well as Shepherd), it'll be interesting to see how heavily they lean into veterans Trent Boult and Kieron Pollard. It'll also be interesting to see how prominent of a role will be given to American spinner Nosh Kenjige.
MINY was already in a tenuous position before Rashid left the team. And it only got worse.
Projected Finish: Sixth
Los Angeles Knight Riders
The biggest story this year in T20 has been Virat Kohli breaking an 18-year curse and finally taking Royal Challengers Bangalore to the IPL title. Pretty much, the only way that story could be topped would be for the Los Angeles Knight Riders to make the MLC playoffs. LAKR is the only team who has yet to make the postseason, but an influx of foreign talent could finally change that.
Possibly realizing that a good percentage of international players would be partially or completely unavailable for action this year, LA decided not to dig too deep into players from Australia, England, and South Africa. Instead, they restricted their search to their own hemisphere and invested heavily in players from the West Indies. So, if you're into the Windies, you're gonna be into the Knight Riders.
In addition to WI greats Sunil Narine and Andre Russell, LA has added Jason Holder, Andre Fletcher, Sherfane Rutherford, and Rovman Powell. That's a lot of maroon to mix with the Knight Riders' purple. All of those extra runs and overs will help complement an impressive roster of domestic players including Ali Khan, Unmukt Chand, Nitish Kumar, and Shadley van Schalkwyk.
If you've been waiting two years for the LA Knight Riders to be good, this might be your year!
Projected Finish: Second
Seattle Orcas
Nicholas Pooran dropped 137 on Seattle in the 2023 championship game and the Orcas haven't been the same since. They won only one match in 2024 and head into 2025 on a five-game losing streak. There's an old adage in sports that since you can't fire the whole team, you fire the coach. Orcas management has ignored that chestnut of wisdom entirely and has instead, essentially, fired the entire team.
The departed is a who's who of franchise T20 -- Quinton de Kock, Ryan Rickelton, Imad Wasim, and Wayne Parnell, among others. In their place is a renewed emphasis on power. David Warner, Kyle Mayers, and Shimron Hetmyer join Heinrich Klaasen in what might be one of the most explosive offenses in the league. The bowling attack should also get a power boost from Afghani Fazalhaq Farooqi, who -- if he can settle visa issues -- should bring some left-armed pace to the squad.
The roster shake up could also give some domestic players a chance to shine. The Orcas made bowler Jessy Singh the number one pick in this year's domestic draft after some impressive outings from him last year with the Washington Freedom. Also look for potentially bigger roles from Cameron Gannon, who won the Bart King Award in 2023 as the league's best domestic player, and Aaron Jones, who became an American hero during last year's World Cup.
Projected Finish: Fifth
© CricAmerica.com/Steve Steinberg 2025
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