The Silicon Valley Strikers are an American professional Twenty20 cricket team based in the San Francisco Bay Area that competes in Minor League Cricket (MiLC). It was formed in 2020 as part of 24 original teams to compete in Minor League Cricket.[1] The franchise is owned by Stanford Strikers LLC.[2]
The team's home ground is Morgan Hills Outdoor Sports Complex, located in Morgan Hill, California.[3]Pranay Suri was named as captain for the 2023 Minor league season, replacing Unmukt Chand.[4]
The current leading run-scorer is Unmukt Chand,[5] with the highest wicket-taker being Pranay Suri.[6]
Franchise history
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]
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]
