The player draft for USA Cricket’s 2021 Minor League Cricket (MLC) was held for the 21 out of 27 franchise teams (including 3 new teams announced ahead of the player draft) on 04th June 2021. This is the 2nd time the player draft has been held for MiLC, with more players registering themselves for the draft and getting picked by the teams and teams announcing their 9 pre-draft player selections. All the 27 teams submitted their 16-member squad details to USA Cricket and were announced on 10th June 2021.
All franchises selected a 18-member squad, which includes a wildcard professional pick, two USA professional picks in their squads, as well as two U21 and one U19 player. The squads contains players who have relocated to USA in the past and some, who will be doing the same in the coming future due to personal/professional reasons. Many players from the Caribbean Islands are part of the announced squads with overseas professionals from South Africa, New Zealand and Canada have been picked up as wildcard professionals in the draft.
Minor League Cricket is of utmost importance for USA Cricket to create a nationwide domestic T20 structure, and also serve as a pathway program for domestic players to impress the coaching staff and the administration to play in Major League Cricket tournament currently scheduled for 2022 launch, which will pave the way for representing USA in the future. As announced by USA Cricket, since the inaugural edition of Minor League Cricket was postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic, the teams in each conference zones were allowed to play exhibition matches within themselves during the period of Sep/Oct 2020 to avoid travelling to other zones in the country.
MiLC creates a unique ecosystem for domestic cricket in the country and development of players, as the U19 players also get the chance to play alongside known professional names in the game via the system.
2021 Minor League Cricket (MiLC) Squads
Western Conference
East Bay Blazers: David White (Marquee), Sujith Gowda (Marquee), Rusty Theron, Josh Dascombe, Mario Rampersaud, Sanjay Krishnamurthy (U21), Nihal Desai (U21), Rohal Posanapalli (U19), Shiva Vashishat, Srinivasan Mohan, Kuldeep Singh, David Bunn, Ruchir Joshi, Nawaz Khan and Skanda Rohit Sharma
Golden State Grizzlies: Hammad Azam (Wildcard), Sami Aslam (Marquee), Zia Muhammad Shahzad (Marquee), Shivan Mishra, Malik Junaid, Neeraj Goel, Saideep Ganesh (U21), Vatsal Vaghela (U21), Aditya Srinivas (U19), Mohit Nataraj, Abbas Jaffri, Sheryar Khan, Asad Khan, Abhi Singh, Bhavesh Jain and Samson Bhatti
Hollywood Master Blasters: Amitoze Singh (Wildcard), Cody Chetty (Marquee), Shehan Fernando (Marquee), Nisarg Patel, Karan Viradiya, Khalid Zadran, Anish Deshpande (U21), Samarth Jayadev (U21), Ajay Immadi (U19), Kanishka Chaugai, Venukalyan Madireddy, Dhyan Ranutunga, Sahaj Patel, Jignesh Patel, Pukar Patel and Basant Regmi
San Diego Surf Riders: Siddarth Matani (Wildcard), Marty Kain (Marquee), Brynley Richards (Marquee), Mrunal Patel, Timil Patel, Ravi Timbawala, Adnesh Tondale (U21), Ayan Desai (U21), Devam Shrivatsava (U19), Jaskarandeep Buttar, Rajdeep Darbar, Sri Krishna, Jaideep Reddy, Muhammad Sadiq, Zubair Murad and Abhinay Vanipally
Seattle Thunderbolts: Harmeet Singh (Wildcard), Andries Gous (Marquee), Shadley van Schalkwyk (Marquee), Prajith Mudi, Deepak Rajendran, Karan Rao, Rishab Mohan (U21), Sahil Kancherla (U21), Advaith Bulusu (U19), Manu Jacob, Varun Potlapally, Nital Vasavada, Manoj Panwar, Anirudh Srinivas, Ujjawal Patel and Avdeshkumar Rai
Silicon Valley Strikers: Shehan Jayasuria (Marquee), Saurabh Netravalkar, Narsingh Deonarine, Srinivas Raghavan, Abhishek Paradkar (U21), Rahul Jariwala (U19), Dev Thadani (U19), Pranay Suri, Anshul Pratap Singh, Gary Graham, Saurabh Verma, Dilpreet Billing, Arshpreet Sidhu and Rushil Ugarkar
SoCal Lashings: Marcus Stewart (Wildcard), Elmore Hutchinson (Marquee), Hammad Shahid (Marquee), Peter Vittachi, Gayan Fernando, Vedant Jain, Taha Jamal (U21), Rayaan Bhagani (U21), Aakashveer Saini (U19), Harpreet Singh, Sukhwant Sekhon, Shamsher Singh, Iftekhar Ahmed, Deepak Gosain, Abhumanyu Rajp and Rajveer S Khosa
Central Conference
Austin Athletics: Nitish Kumar (Marquee), Awais Zia (Marquee), Shayan Jhangir, Jannisar Khan, Sidhesh Pathare, Hisham Ali (U21), Safiullah Faheem (U21), Laksh Parikh (U19), Hamza Bangash, Hamza Khalid, Jay Desai, Ahmed Butt, Jagrit Raj, Awais Mubarak and Preyas Bhakta
St. Louis Americans: Siddharth Trivedi (Wildcard), Jacobus Pienaar (Marquee), Unnikrishnan GP (Marquee), Hemant Mandle, Luke Schofield, Dhruv Duggal, Joshua Kind (U21), Paras Marwaha (U21), Kaustabh Sriperumbudoor (U19), Munn Patel, Asheesh Singh, Yashodhan Mahajan, Siddharth Saladi, Sagar Thakkar, Surji Singh and Murali Basupalli
Houston Hurricanes: Zia ul Haq (Wildcard), Rameez Raja (Marquee), Ludick Willem (Marquee), Usman Rafiq, Ali Samad, Saqlain Haider, Majjid Zubair (U21), Karthik Gattepalli (U21), Rishi Ramesh (U19), Rana Ali, Naseer Jamali, Sushant Modani, Haris Qureshi, Waleed Ahmed, Hrrit Hinge and Ahsan Shah
Michigan Cricket Stars: Abdulahad Malik (Wildcard), Calvin Savage (Marquee), Saad Ali (Marquee), Shaker Ahmed, Ryan Scott, Avier Christian, Raewin Senior (U21), Ruhan Swar (U21), Zakiullah Sultani (U19), Arjun Ajbani, Nikhil Kanchan, Ferhan Ali, Vraj Patel, Azher Ali Syed, Mahfuzur Rahman and Harish Yalamanchili
Irving Mustangs: Waqas Saleem (Wildcard), Corey Anderson (Marquee), Rayyankhan Pathan (Marquee), Syed Najaf Shah, Nosthush Kenjige, Adnan Haroon, Ali Sheikh (U21), Rehman Dar (U21), Soorya Selvakumar (U19), Abhiram Valisammagari, Ninad Nimbalkar, Petson Matthews, Ajay Masand, Mihir Cherukupalli, Nital Patel and Rohan Manekar
Chicago Blasters: Mohammed Asaduddin (Wildcard), Shaheer Hassan (Marquee), Fahad Babar (Marquee), Najam Iqbal, Hasan Bemat, Ashhar Mehdi, Mohit Patel (U21), Sachin Veerasammy (U21), Mittansh Nithiyanandam (U19), Hunain Amin, Amyn Gilani, Sai Charith Daggupati, Datta Prakash Y, Donieke Perrin, Talha Mohsin and Anirudh Jonnavitula
Chicago Catchers: Rizwan Cheema (Wildcard), Karan Kumar (Marquee), Saquib Chowdhury (Marquee), Sikander Soleja, Arjun Kumar, Manan Patel, Abhyudaya Garg (U21), Tejas Visal (U21), Kevin Philip (U19), Mustafa Sameer Syed, Ankush Agrawal, Ahmadullah Adil, Raid Ally, Pankaj Kampli, Sarwar Ghori and Sneh Patel
Eastern Conference
New Jersey Stallions: Justin Dill (Marquee), Aaditya Varadharajan (Marquee), Jasdeep Singh, Dominique Rikhi, Jon-Ross Campbell, Raymond Ramrattan (U21), Anirudh Immanuel (U21), Saiteja Mukkamalla (U19), Dilon Heyliger, Sachin Mylavarapu, Hiren Patel, Stephen Wiig, Preet Shah, Raghavender Tirunahari and Praneeth Nemarugommulla
Manhattan Yorkers: Andre McCarthy (Wildcard), Smit Patel (Marquee), Raj Rocky Nannan (Marquee), Gajanand Singh, Savan Patel, Manoj Acharya, Aman Patel (U21), Ved Churiwalla (U21), Surya Thurumella (U19), Raj Bhavsar, Poojan Mody, Kevin Shah, Deveshwari Prashad, Alex Amsterdam, Raj Patel and Vivek Ravichandran
Empire State Titans: Trevon Griffith (Wildcard), Navin Stewart (Marquee), Jaladh Dua, Bhaskar Yadram, Damion Jacobs, Mohamed Shaw (U21), Taahaa Warraich (U21), Tabib Ahmed (U19), Trison Carmichael, Javein Thomas, Akeem Dodson, Tahmid Ahmed, Robin Choudhry, Hemendra Ramdihal and Kelvin Shewprasad
New Jersey Somerset Cavaliers: Chandrapaul Hemraj (Wildcard), Xavier Marshall (Marquee), Kennar Lewis (Marquee), Syed Abdullah, Shawn Findlay, Karima Gore, Ahmed Labib (U21), Deep Joshi (U21), Yasir Mohammad (U19), Ruvindu Gunasekera, Tristann Coleman, Noman Iftikhar, Juanoy Drysdale, Muhammad Asad Ghous, Umair Ali and Mohammad Chaudhry
New England Eagles: Assad Fudadin (Wildcard), Akshay Homraj, Derone Davis, Bruce Blackwood, Emanuel Seecharran (U21), Aryan Joshi (U21), Chaitanya Parwal (U19), Zeshan Muhammad, Rohit Maryada, Nikhil Netaji Reddy, Karanjit Singh, Harshil Patel, Muhammad Bilal and Terrence Madramootoo
The Philadelphians: Milind Kumar (Marquee), Carmi Le Roux (Marquee), Derick Narine, Francis Mendonca, Chiranshu Bhatia, Abhayjit Khangura (U21), Pranav Rao (U21), Aditya Sharma (U19), Oraine Williams, Usman Ashraf, Muneshwar Chris Patandin, Looknauth Chinkoo, Kunal Baride, Yashwant Balaji and Muhammad Shah
DC Hawks: Dane Piedt (Wildcard), Sunny Sohal, Adil Bhatti, Franklin Clement, Ishan Sharma (U21), Rasesh Behera (U21), Ritwik Behera (U19), Raviteja Reddy, Gourav Bajaj, Chris Vantull, Waleed Karimullah, Abdul Jabbar Mohammed, Abdullah Gazhi and Talal Zia
Southern Conference
Atlanta Param Veers: Darpankumar Patel (Marquee), Evroy Dyer (Marquee), Zain Sayed, Sahil Charania, Param Patel, Santosh Reddy (U21), Dhruv Patel (U21), Heer Patel (U19), Azeem Charania, Garth Garvey, Neive McNally, Mark Parchment, Coi Thompson, Vinothkumar Kandaswamy and Ahsan Plummer
Atlanta Fire: Rahkeem Cornwall (Wildcard), Corne Dry (Marquee), Amila Aponso (Marquee), Ricardo Powell, Aaron Jones, Steven Taylor, Akhilesh Reddy Bodugum (U21), Amrut Pore (U21), Ateendra Subramanian (U19), Rishi Bhardwaj, Sagar Patel, Jaydeep Desai, Shaquille Forbes, Vasu Vegi, Ankit Hirani and Ridwan Palash
Fort Lauderdale Lions: Rayad Emrit (Wildcard), Timothy Surujbally (Marquee), Kyle Phillip (Marquee), Omari Williams, Ricky Nayar, Roy Silva, Pradeep Ravi (U21), Atul Iyer (U21), Elton Tucker Jr (U19), Herlando Johnson, Isuru Kuruwitage, Gavin Wallace, Honey Gori, Iain Beverly, Anirban Majumdar and Akshay Kumar Patel
Morrisville Cardinals: Ryan Wiggins (Marquee), Jaskaran Malhotra (Marquee), Siva Kumar Duvvarapu, Sanjay Stanley, Karthikeya Jagadish, Abhiram Bolisetty (U21), Aryan Shah (U21), Rohan Phadke (U19), Conrad Lotz, Kiran Saravanakumar, Mayur Choudhary, Kunal Sehgal, Gautham Ravindran, Aditya Padala and Mohammed Abdulla
Florida Beamers: Monank Patel (Wildcard), Zishawn Qureshi (Marquee), Rajesh Sharma (Marquee), Suneel Kumar, Prit Patel, Swaril Parikh, Faud Azadi (U21), Sarnam Patel (U21), Akshar Patel (U19), Vignesh Rg, Leslie Daniel Raj, Manav Patel, Rishikesh Neupane, Ammar Malik, Hiteshkumar Patel and Akash Joshi
Orlando Galaxy: Timroy Allen (Wildcard), Amahl Nathaniel (Marquee), Babar Arshad (Marquee), Duane Nathaniel, Asghar Sheikh, Christian Herrera, Deep Patel (U21), Matthew Comerie (U21), Bhaskaradipan Gnanasakthi (U19), Marion Bharath, Adrian Thompson, Kemar Jarrett, Ramone Medwinter, Conroy Jacobs, Roohit Dutchin and Shabaka Mathlin
