Silicon Valley Strikers

Talks of an American Twenty20 league started in November 2018 just before USA Cricket became the new governing body of cricket in the United States.[7][8] In May 2021, USA Cricket announced they had accepted a bid by American Cricket Enterprises (ACE) for a US$1 billion investment covering the league and other investments benefitting the U.S. national teams.[9]

In an Annual General Meeting on February 21, 2020, it was announced that USA Cricket was planning to launch Major League Cricket in 2021 and Minor League Cricket that summer,[10] but it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic[11] and due to the lack of high-quality cricket stadiums in the USA.[12] Major League Cricket was pushed to a summer-2023 launch[13] and Minor League Cricket was pushed back to July 31, 2021.[14]

USA Cricket CEO Iain Higgins also pointed out cities such as New York City, Houston and Los Angeles with a large cricket fanbase, and targeted them among others as launch cities for Minor League Cricket.[15]

In July 2020, the player registration for the Minor League Cricket exhibition league began.[16] On August 15, 2020, USA Cricket announced the teams participating in the exhibition league matches, also listing the owners for each team.[17] The draft for the exhibition league began on August 22, 2020,[18] with the Silicon Valley Strikers releasing their squad on August 24.[19] Shadley van Schalkwyk was later named as captain for the Silicon Valley Strikers in the exhibition league.[19]

After the conclusion of the exhibition league, USA Cricket announced that they were planning to launch the inaugural season of Minor League Cricket in spring 2021.[20] Ahead of the official season, which was announced to kick off on July 31,[21] they announced Unmukt Chand as captain and Pranay Suri as vice-captain (although originally Suri was captain, due to Chand not being called in the squad until the third week[22]).[4]

In their first match of the season, the Strikers defeated the Thunderbolts by 2 wickets.[23] They then went on to win against the Master Blasters,[24] the Surf Riders twice,[25][26] the Blazers twice,[25] the Lashings,[27] the Grizzlies twice,[26][27] and the Thunderbolts again.[28][29] They additionally lost against the Lashings,[23] the Master Blasters,[30] and the Thunderbolts[31] throughout the group stage. They placed 2nd in their group, thus qualifying the Strikers for the quarter-finals.[32]

In the quarter-finals, the Strikers won against the Austin Athletics in a best-of-3 series 2-1, qualifying them for the semi-finals.[33] During the semi-finals, the Strikers bowled out the Grizzlies for 135 to win by 33 runs and take them to the finals.[34] In the finals, they won against the Stallions by 6 wickets to win their maiden MiLC title.[35]

Ahead of the 2022 season, Major League Cricket announced that the draft for that season would take place on May 12.[36]

Nat.	Player	Span	Matches	Innings	Runs	Average	HS	100	50
	Unmukt Chand	2021–present	16	16	612	51.00	132*	1	5
	Shehan Jayasuriya	2021–present	19	18	512	30.12	78	0	4
	Narsingh Deonarine	2021–present	16	15	321	32.10	59	0	4
	Rahul Jariwala	2021-present	18	15	308	20.53	81	0	1
	Gary Graham	2021–present	19	15	227	25.22	44	0	0

Source: CricClubs, Last updated: 17 December 2021

Nat.	Player	Span	Matches	Wickets	Avg	BBI	Econ	SR	4w	5w
	Abhishek Paradkar	2021–present	14	20	19.35	3/10	7.66	15.2	0	0
	Saurabh Netravalkar	2021–present	14	18	16.56	2/9	5.32	18.7	0	0
	Roshon Primus	2021–present	16	18	25.33	2/23	7.98	19.1	0	0
	Pranay Suri	2021-present	19	16	24.31	3/18	5.95	24.5	0	0
	Kulvinder Singh	2021–present	10	16	16.38	4/19	6.89	14.2	1	0

Source: CricClubs, Last updated: 19 December 2021