These last few years have seen a proliferation of new Cricket Leagues—all in the short form of the game, which turns out to be hugely successful on television. Your Humble Blogger has a lovely streak of choosing what turned out to be the worst team to follow in three consecutive new leagues—the New England Eagles of (US) Minor League Cricket, the Welsh Fire of the (UK) Hundred, and now the Gugarat Giants of the (India) Women’s Premier League. Ah, well. Fourth time will be the charm, or else, you know, it won’t.
That fourth time will be (US) Major League Cricket, a three-week, six-franchise tournament in July 2023. The franchises will be named for various US cities or states, but as far as I can tell, all the games will be played in Texas, so the franchise locations will be entirely notional. As well, three of the franchises will be named after their parent franchises in the Indian Premiere League, so they are barely even notionally local. The other three teams do have international franchise partners, but at least have their own local-themed, if terrible, franchise names.
Actually, let’s go through the teams and their partners.
- The Seattle Orcas: their partner is the Delhi Capitals of the India Premier League (IPL), and their big-name US investor is Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO), who was also a big early funder for Major League Cricket. They got first pick in the domestic draft and chose Harmeet Singh, who was a teenage phenom for India but washed out in the IPL, and was considered a bad character (although he was cleared of match-fixing charges) and eventually moved to the US, where he’s hoping for a second act at 30 years old. Hm. They have the biggest international signing so far, with the great (and also thirty-year-old) Quinton de Kock. At any rate, I harbor no ill will against the city of Seattle, and it’s a pretty reasonable team name with local color, although I have difficulty saying “Go Orcas!”
- The DC Freedom: I think Washington stole the Philadelphia team, which would be enough reason to root against them, but the name is another. Also, their major US investor is Sanjay Govil, who apparently makes his money from the interaction of business computer systems and the health care industry. Their franchise partner is Cricket New South Wales, of Australia’s Sheffield Shield competition, which isn’t a strike against them, particularly. Their first-round draft pick was the South African wicketkeeper Andries Gous, not quite thirty years old, recently retired from first-class play, and they’ve also signed Anrich Nortje, the South African quick bowler, and the genuinely exciting Sri Lankan all-rounder Wanindu Hasaranga.
- MI New York: Their franchise partner is the Mombai Indians, which means they’re actually called… the Mombai Indians of New York? Really? This is actually the closest team geographically to YHB’s New England home, and I would consider potentially rooting for a New York team under those circumstances, but can I root for the Indians? Also, their corporate owner (who also owns MI Cape Town and MI Emirates) is a petrochemical company. Their first-round draft pick is batsman Steven Taylor, who played as a teenager for the US team, and then in the Caribbean professional league, and is now almost thirty. No international signings yet.
- The San Francisco Unicorns: I guess I like that they’re trying with the name? But since their franchise partner is Cricket Victoria, why not be the San Francisco Victorians, and use one of those great painted Noe Valley houses on their logo? Also, let’s be clear, the team represents Silicon Valley, not the City. The big-name investors are venture capital guys Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman. Their first-round draft pick is Corey Anderson, formerly of New Zealand, who has been playing in the “Legends League” after retiring from first-class cricket. Their big international signing is Aaron Finch, who was the captain of Australia not so long ago and is now 36, and they have also signed the all-rounder Marcus Stoinis, who is only 33 and was playing for Australia in the last year.
- The Los Angeles Knight Riders: This is a terrible name, yes, but they are stuck with it, since they are owned by the Kolkata Knight Riders (IPL), which is itself owned by Jay Mehta, whose money comes from… sugar, cotton, cement, consulting, finance and evidently everything else in the whole world. Their first-round draft pick is fast-bowler Ali Khan, who plays for the US national squad, and has played for a variety of teams around the world. He’s 32. No international signings yet. Obviously, I will be rooting against the LA team.
- Texas Super Kings: This is another terrible name inherited by the parent franchise, the Chennai Super Kings, which is owned by India Cements, Limited. Texas investors are Anurag Jain and Ross Perot Jr, which again is interaction of business computer systems and the health care industry. Their domestic first-round is Juan “Rusty” Theron, formerly of South Africa, who retired from first-class cricket in 2015, but has been playing for the US national team since 2019. No international signings yet. I am not in general opposed to rooting for a team based in Texas, although I have never actually done so.
Now you’re up to date. The theme for the domestic signings is, unsurprisingly, former teenage phenoms who never quite became big stars and are now probably past their athletic prime. International signings as well seem to be mostly older players who were never (with the exception of Quinton de Kock) quite at the top. There may be some bigger names coming, of course—there is a rumor that English players who are under contract to County teams may be willing to sign if their team drops out of contention in June—but that’s what I’m seeing so far.
I think, at this point, I am inclined to throw in my lot with Seattle, if I can make that support sound a little less like “gworkas!”
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
> The franchises will be named for various US cities or states, but as far as I can tell, all the games will be played in Texas, so the franchise locations will be entirely notional.
I’m intrigued by the idea of the “home team”. The part that seems reasonable to me is the archaic version, where I’m from Springfield (say), and I think of myself as a Springfieldian, and I think that other Springfieldians are great in general, and that we are particularly great at playing Blernsball. Our team, composed of Springfieldians, competes against your team, which is from Shelbyville, and you feel the same way about. I root for my team, because they are my fellow Springfieldians and I have municipalistic pride, and likewise you.
The part that seems less reasonable to me is the modern version, where I was born in New Haven and then lived in Houston and Los Angeles and Philadelphia and Los Angeles and Boston and San Francisco and Los Angeles and Boston, and I don’t particularly think that any of the people in any of those places are better or worse than any others, and have basically no municipalistic pride, and I root for the Oakland As because one of the guys who used to run the team in some way seemed smart and innovative and I thought that was cool and hoped that his smart and innovative approach succeeded. Oh, and none of the players on any of these teams are “from” any of the places I’ve lived, in any sense that matters, except by coincidence; and they may well switch teams, for any number of reasons, so it’s not like they have any municipalistic pride either.
I’m sure there are some people who wander around less than I did, but I feel like for a lot of people, the idea of a “home team” is sort of weird. And this recent example takes that to an extreme, where there are people with “New York” on their hats and people with “Los Angeles” on their hats but it’s basically arbitrary which are which. Is the whole thing 100% social construct these days?
(Meta note: You’ve probably talked about this sort of thing before, and we may even have talked about it together before, but memory is the second thing to go, so.)
The archaic version you are talking about is, pretty much, an amateur sports sort of thing, where people play for the pride in their hometown (or workplace, or whatever), and there is certainly a place for that. But of course this is a professional sports league, and that’s something entirely different–and for a hundred and fifty years or more, professional sports connection to their “home” cities has been more tenuous. Even in the World Baseball Classic that just ended, the connection between the players and the nation whose uniform they wore could be pretty tenuous.
That being said, there’s a huge difference, in my opinion, between a “home team” that plays eighty-one games in the same town, or maybe forty or even twenty games in that area, and a “home team” that never plays at “home”.
Thanks,
-V.
It’s an odd thing. I have lived in half a dozen places since growing up in Pittsburgh, and I’ve now lived in my current home longer than I lived in Pittsburgh, but my home teams are the Pittsburgh teams, and that is not a matter that is open to decision-making on my part. I can choose, if the home teams are not involved, to root for a particular team on another occasion, but that is not the same thing. I can choose to stop following a sport, as I have pretty much done with professional football, but I can’t choose to change which team is my home team in that sport. Perhaps the odd fact that, although I have moved around quite a bit, I have lived mostly in cities too small to have their own major-league teams has something to do with that, but I doubt it.
All that said, the associating of these cricket teams with cities in which they never play is bizarre, but would people accept the idea of team names that didn’t include a city or some other defined community at all? That used to happen with barnstorming teams, which were often Somebody’s All-Stars, but we’ve lost touch with that naming convention. We routinely accept that sporting arenas are named after corporations, but not yet that teams would be, although that would be the obvious next step.
Three thoughts:
* I personally see “gworkas!” as an advantage rather than disadvantage of rooting for that Seattle team.
* I’m amused that the LA team is the LAKRs.
* There was at least one science fiction story in which the teams are based on group identity rather than geographical location: “The National Pastime” (1973), by Norman Spinrad, about a future sport called Combat Football. Here’s a list of the teams, with the slurs removed/paraphrased: “a team for the [Black people], a team for the frustrated Middle Americans, a team for the hippies and kids, a team for the [Hispanic people], a team for the [gay people], and a team for the motorcycle nuts and violence freaks.” …That general idea may well have been used in lots of other science fiction, but I think I first encountered it in that Spinrad story.
Jed,
I hadn’t spotted the LAKRs connection, so now I’m amused, too. Thank you. I expect at some point this summer I will refer to them as the LAKRs, and have to do some explanation, so I have that to look forward to. I hope I will at that time be interacting with someone who will need to have explained the local geography of Minneapolis.
Thanks,
-V.
Oh, “The National Pastime”–this is one of those stories that I read as a teenager and wished I hadn’t, yet remained seared into my brain no matter how much I tried to forget it. 🙂
As was always likely, I developed a rooting interest in the San Francisco Unicorns (hashtag glitterarmy) who, equally inevitably, failed to make the semifinals—two wins and three losses in the first round, still finishing over the LA team, so that’s all right.
Thanks,
-V.