News & Updates

2023 Minor League Cricket Draft Results

The much-awaited MiLC draft was rolled out on Wednesday, June 7, 2023. It kicked off at 5 PM EDT starting from the East Cost. The draft was divided into 4 main divisions – Eastern, Southern, Central & Western. Eastern Division comprised New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Whereas, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Bay Area, and Sacramento were all included under Western Division. Southern Division included Atlanta and Central Division entailed only Chicago and Texas. This draft is aimed at uplifting the standards of domestic cricket in the US where ground-breaking talent could be discovered. 

Below is the breakdown of the player categories and the roster structure announced by the MilC ahead of their historic draft.

Player Categories

Priority Domestic Players – Players from each team’s regional zone selected prior to the draft.

Domestic Player – Players from each team’s regional zone selected during the draft or retained from the 2022 roster.

U-21 Player – Players from each team’s regional zone born after August 31, 2003, selected before the draft.

U-19 Player – Players from each team’s regional zone born after August 31, 2001, selected before the draft.

Free Agent – Domestic players from any draft zone available for selection prior to the player draft. 

Wildcard Players – Any player from anywhere approved for selection. At least one wildcard must be a domestic player.

Retained Player – Any player that is retained by the franchise from its 2022 draft, as long as that player remains located in that franchise’s respective draft zone.

Roster Structure

The roster structure to be followed by all teams are as follows:

• Each team will feature a minimum of 16 and a maximum of 18 players in their squad.
• Domestic players are to be added from local catchment areas allotted to each team.
• It is mandatory for teams to include two U-21 players & one U-19 player. 
• Teams are allowed to retain a maximum of 3 players from last season. 
• Professional players with international experience can be selected under Priority Domestic Player and Wildcard Player Categories. 
• Teams will have two minutes to make their selections.
• The draft continues until each team meets the minimum roster composition requirements above.

Draft Results

Were among the 6 teams that were embroiled in an intense bidding war from Eastern Division. Here are the draft picks for each team below: 

Empire State Titans

PICK #1: Gajanand Singh

PICK #2: Savan Patel

PICK #3: Aman Patel

PICK #4: Deepak Puttur

PICK #5: Towhidul Islam

PICK #6: Vansh Patel

PICK #7: Mario Lobban

Manhattan Yorkers

PICK #1: Hiren Patel

PICK #2: Deep Patel

PICK #3: Siddarth Kappa

PICK #4: Deep Joshi

PICK#5: Shiv Patel

The Philadelphians

PICK #1: Deveshwari Prashad

PICK #2: Raj Nannan

PICK #3: Juanoy Drysdale

PICK #4: Mario Rampersaud

PICK #5: Sivaram Swarna

New Jersey Somerset Cavaliers

PICK #1: Shawn Finlay

PICK #2: Paul Palmer

PICK #3: Steven Katwaroo

PICK #4: Waleed Karimullah

PICK #5: Ahmed Labib

New Jersey Stallions

PICK #1: Siddarth Matani

PICK #2: Derone Davis

PICK #3: Raahil Amarshi

PICK#4: Karan Patel

PICK #5: Shayaan Saad

Following the successful conclusion of the Eastern Division draft, the MiLC team headed to Texas where they conducted the Central Division draft. Here are the results after 5 rounds of selection between 4 teams from the Central Division. 

Houston Hurricanes

PICK #1: Ahsan Shah

PICK #2: Huzefa Ahmed

PICK #3: Kamran Sheikh

PICK #4: Hassan Rashid

PICK #5: Arir Ali

Dallas Mustangs

PICK #1: Naseer Jamali

PICK #2: Nkrumah Bonner

PICK #3: Adnan Haroon

PICK #4: Prathmesh Power

Pick #5: Jannisar Khan

Dallas Foria Giants

PICK #1: Sanchit Bhatia

PICK #2: Ajay Masand

PICK #3: Sachin Ashokan

PICK #4: Adwait Bilgiri Jagganath

PICK #5: Abhiram Valisammagari

Lone Star Athletics

PICK #1: Gaurav Bajaj

PICK #2: Waqas Saleem

PICK #3: Hamza Khalid

PICK #4: Aarin Nadkarni

PICK #5: Arya Kannatha

The team later headed to the Western Division where they conducted the drafts in Bay Area and San Diego. Here are the results from that draft: 

San Diego Surf Riders

PICK #1: Sanchit Sandhu

PICK #2: Gayan Fernando

PICK #3: Abhinay Vanipally

PICK #4: Jaideep Reddy

PICK #5: Burhanuddin Bharmal

Cricket Lashings

PICK #1: Wais Quraishi

PICK #2: Muhammad Zaid

PICK #3: Pranav Reddy Pagidyala

PICK #4: Rubal Raina

PICK #5: Deepak Gosain

Silicon Valley Strikers

PICK #1: Kulvinder Singh

PICK #2: Ruchir Joshi

PICK #3: Arsh Buch

PICK #4: Mohak Buch

PICK #5: Siddhant Senthil

PICK #6: Umang Parikh

Golden State Grizzlies

PICK #1: Karan Chandel

PICK #2: Dilpreet Billing

PICK #3: Rashid Ajami

PICK #4: Arshdeep Singh Jammu

PICK #5: John Manohar Bangaru

East Bay Blazers

PICK #1: Brody Couch

PICK #2: Abhishek Paradkar

PICK #3: Abhi Singh

PICK #4: Rudrik Suthar

PICK #5: Aakash Sundaresan

Zubin Surkari, the Tournament Director of Minor League Cricket has expressed his enthusiasm for orchestrating the professional T20 league and is heavily impressed with the developments leading into the season. “The third season of Minor League Cricket promises to bring more great action for American cricket fans this summer. We are grateful to our title partner Sunoco for their ongoing support fuelling the competition.” 

The drafts in other zones are yet to be concluded. MilC has agreed that they will head to Chicago at a later date to conduct the remaining drafts. As we gradually move closer to the launch date, a lot of interesting headlines await us as many teams are yet to select their picks for the 3rd edition of the Minor Cricket League.