A Look Back — and Ahead — at MLC’s New CEO

As Major League Cricket gets ready to fire up its third season this June, it'll do so with a new name at the top. Former Cricket West Indies CEO Johnny Grave has taken a similar position with the US's top professional cricket league and will be responsible for developing, growing, and -- hopefully -- separating MLC from the alphabet soup of other T20 leagues around the world.

To put it all in perspective, I talked with Machel St Patrick Hewitt, who has been covering West Indies Cricket as part of the Caribbean Cricket Podcast for over a half-dozen years and has been a regular on BBC Radio's coverage of Windies Cricket.

"I'm a big fan of Johnny Grave," says Hewitt. "It's always hard as an outsider to come into the Caribbean ecosystem because -- when it comes to cricket in the Caribbean -- it's never just cricket. You've got to fight the politics. And the politics in one territory is not the same in another territory. You've got the overall politics of trying to lead West Indies cricket before we even talk about the players."

"There are several things that Johnny has done in his seven-year tenure, which are to be applauded. Most notably I think is that by the time he left Cricket West Indies, Cricket West Indies was no longer in debt. If you're thinking about key performance indicators and metrics for a CEO, he is to be credited for that."

But Grave's successes weren't just limited to the balance sheet. "From a player relations perspective, he's also to be credited," asserts Hewitt. "When he first came into the job, player and stakeholder relationships were at rock bottom. Several players no longer wanted to represent West Indies and had effectively been excommunicated. And under Johnny's watch, those players were brought back into the fold. Kieron Pollard came back. Bravo came back. Gayle came back. Players who we thought we'd never see in West Indies Cricket again recommitted themselves to playing for the West Indies."

"I was fortunate enough to speak to Johnny in our last series in 2024 when England came over. We sat down and we kind of caught up. I asked him how did he reflect on his seven years in the role. And he said that he felt that he could leave with his head held high and that he had affected change in the running of Cricket West Indies and cricket within the region off the field in a positive way. I'd love to believe that really the legacy of Johnny will be where the West Indies is in five years' time, provided people carry on with the work and foundation that he has laid down."

In addition to financial savvy and a solid rapport with players, what else will Grave bring to his new role with MLC?

"I think Major League Cricket has got a real coup here. It's not that it's about a popularity contest, but Johnny is so well connected in world cricket. Wherever you go in world cricket, you rarely meet anyone that has a bad word to say about Johnny. And I think that kind of social capital travels a long way."

"The way Major League Cricket has positioned itself after two seasons is to be the second go-to tournament -- where all the top players make sure they're available. I think everyone accepts that IPL is number one, but if Major League Cricket is serious, and I believe they are, I think they want to be the number two. I think Johnny joins Major League Cricket at a time of real excitement in terms of the potential of where that league could go and the fact that obviously the founders behind it want Major League Cricket to enter the kind of zeitgeist of American society. Obviously, that's a long ways away, but you can see that that's clearly their intention. So, they've got a man coming in now as CEO, who has a clear kind of mandate of 'Get us to X, Y, Z point.' And that's what I believe Johnny's good at."

Way back in 2021, Grave was bullish on the prospects of MLC. He told the Times of London he was impressed by USA Cricket's naming of San Francisco 49ers executive Paraag Marathe as its then chairman: "They’ve got American sports people and cricket people, too. It bodes well.” We're all four years older now and it'll be interesting to see what Johnny Grave can bring to Major League Cricket and cricket, overall, in the US.