The inaugural edition of the Major League Cricket (MLC) is set to commence on July 13. A total of six teams - Texas Super Kings, Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas and Washington Freedom - will be locking horns against each other over the course of next two weeks or so to win the trophy. Several top notch players in T20 cricket will be taking part in the tournament and interestingly, there will be three Indian players as well who will be playing for different teams.
Ambati Rayudu was set to play for Texas Super Kings after announcing his retirement from Indian Premier League (IPL) after winning the trophy for Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2023. But he pulled out of the tournament at the last moment probably due to BCCI's recent restriction for the retired players. Nevertheless, three other Indian players will be featuring in the competition and they are - Unmukt Chand, Smit Patel and Harmeet Singh.
Yes, these three Indian players will be featuring in MLC 2023 and the BCCI doesn't have any objection for that as well. The reason for the same is that all these three cricketers have retired from Indian cricket citing lack of opportunities and have shifted their base to the USA. Unmukt Chand, Smit and Harmeet all played for India at U19 level. Perhaps, Unmukt was the captain of India U19 team that won the World Cup and he also scored a match-winning century in the final against Australia. Smit Patel was part of the same team and played a crucial hand with the bat when it mattered the most.
Coming back to their involvement in MLC, Unmukt Chand will be playing for Los Angeles Knight Riders under the captaincy of Sunil Narine while Smit Patel has been picked by San Francisco Unicorns and he will be playing under Aaron Finch's leadership. As far as Harmeet Singh is concerned, he will be featuring for Seattle Orcas whose captain is Wayne Parnell.
