Silicon Valley Strikers

Background

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]

Exhibition league

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]

2021 season

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]

2022 season

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