Facebook and Amazon help launch Finch, Stoinis into USA cricket’s orbit

Tech wizards who made their mark as early investors in Facebook and selling startups to Amazon and Walmart are the men behind the San Franciso team propelling Aaron Finch and Marcus Stoinis into the new world of elite cricket in the United States.

Finch will captain the San Francisco Unicorns and Stoinis will be one of his major weapons as part of the six-team Major League Cricket Twenty20 competition which kicks off in July as the most ambitious attempt yet to take the sport beyond club level in the US.

An artist’s impression of Grand Prairie Stadium, a converted baseball stadium in Dallas, Texas, where the first Major League Cricket tournament will be based.

“Any time a new competition starts - especially somewhere like the US, where they haven’t had a huge amount of cricket before - it’s exciting,” Finch told the Herald and The Age. “The opportunity to get into the league at the start was really attractive.”

Lead investors in the San Francisco team, Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan, are mates from Chennai who did PhDs in computer science at Stanford University and have become successful entrepreneurs.

United by their love of cricket, they once set up a satellite dish on a hall at Stanford so the many cricket fans on campus from South Asia and beyond could watch the 1996 World Cup in India.

Remarkably, North America, combining the US and Canada through Willow TV, is now the third-largest market for Cricket Australia’s television rights behind India and England and has been for some time, highlighting the potential size of a market crying out for organisation and investment.

Former England World Cup winner Liam Plunkett, who now lives in the USA, bowling in the Minor League.

Willow TV founders Sameer Mehta and Vijay Srinivasan, who sold it to the Times of India in 2016 for $150 million, are behind Major League Cricket.

Speaking from San Francisco this week, Rajaraman sounded even more enthusiastic than Finch about the impending launch of MLC.

“I’m super excited,” Rajaraman told the Herald and The Age. “It’s all going to come down to the quality of the cricket that gets played and I think it will be super high-quality cricket.

“We really have a shot of becoming, in the long run, one of the top three T20 tournaments in the world. That’s where we’ve set our sights and we think it’s possible.”

Aaron Finch will captain the San Francisco Unicorns in the USA’s Major Cricket League Credit: Getty

Leading overseas players in the MLC can earn $260,000 for five matches and a potential final compared to top Big Bash players without marketing deals, who max out at about $220,000 for 14 games plus finals.

San Francisco has a partnership with Cricket Victoria, which will provide staff and expertise for the tournament along with players, hence the signing of Finch from the Renegades and Stoinis from the Stars, with the likelihood of more to come.

They will be joined by former World Cup-winning England fast bowler Liam Plunkett and former New Zealand allrounder Corey Anderson, who are among 46 former first-class cricketers now living and playing in the US’s Minor League.

Victoria followed a model first set up by Cricket NSW in a partnership with Washington Freedom, which is likely to see NSW players join that franchise. Washington Freedom have combined with George Mason University to study the feasibility of a new multi-purpose cricket and baseball facility.

The Freedom have signed the world’s fastest bowler, South African Anrich Nortje, and Sri Lankan leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga.

The remaining four teams are essentially owned or run by IPL teams, which has already had a direct impact with the signing of Mitch Marsh by the Seattle Orcas, who are co-owned by the Delhi Capitals, Marsh’s IPL club. He will be joined at the Orcas by former South African captain Quinton de Kock.

Other MLC franchises with IPL connections are the Texas Super Kings, MI (Mumbai Indians) New York and Los Angeles Knight Riders.

The biggest hurdle to the event are the petty administrative squabbles which have held cricket in the US back for decades.

Mitchell Marsh has been signed by the Seattle Orcas through his IPL club Delhi.Credit: AP

The International Cricket Council has sent letters to major cricketing countries saying that USA Cricket, which has a long-term agreement with MLC, have not sanctioned the event. However, an MLC spokesman said the necessary sanction was expected in the coming days.

Cricinfo reported that the hold-up may be a ploy by USA Cricket to try and extract more revenue from MLC investors.

There has been a concerted effort in recent years to raise the standard of cricket in the US through the Minor League, with a two-week trial of the best players before an inaugural Major League draft for local players held early this week.

Victoria and NSW, who are compiling team lists and overseeing high performance for their franchise partners, sent representatives to the trials and the draft.

Cricket Victoria’s CEO Nick Cummins and Cricket NSW head of elite male cricket, Michael Klinger, were impressed with the quality of local players, describing them as ranging from BBL to Premier Club (Grade Cricket) standard.

The combined start-up costs for the MLC and the six clubs, which are all privately owned, is estimated at $180 million. And up to that much again will be invested in the coming years building elite venues for each team in a country where baseball diamonds and rectangular football fields dominate the landscape.

At least the first two editions of the MLC will be played at Grand Prairie Stadium near Dallas, Texas, at a small, redeveloped ground where the AirHogs independent minor league baseball team had a short life before being put out of business by COVID-19. Some matches will also be played at a venue in North Carolina.

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