Transcript
Neel: Welcome back to The American Over, a podcast on cricket in the USA. Once again, my name is Neil.
American Over: And I'm Dhruv. And Neil, we have a ton to celebrate today.
Neel: Absolutely. Not the Eagles, but we do have. We do have the USA clinched.
American Over: so
Neel: uh the top spot in the current ODI World Cup. Week two qualifier. uh that was a mouthful uh so you wanna run it down we also had two cool matches we have a match going on right now as a time of recording uh so you want to break down what exactly happened in the last two weeks And then I can talk a bit about kind of where this leaves us.
American Over: Yeah, the U .S., Namibia and UAE have a trilateral sort of three match series each going on right now in Dallas, of all places at at that that gorgeous stadium down there. A little bit of a small stadium seems like it's a little bit of a flat track, but U .S.
American Over: kind of you know in some ways handily beat the uae and and namibia uh in those matches to very high scoring ODI chases, you know, both around 300 runs. First one was about 299. Second one was 330, give or take. And they've got another they've got another chase lining up right now, it sounds like, against the UAE. i think it's I just think it's really interesting that...
American Over: You know, we've qualified for the World Cup qualifier. There's a lot going on here. and yet it still seems like the usa is still is is getting into their getting into their rhythm on the ODI side.
American Over: The batting seems really strong, but the bowling side, I don't know, leaves a little bit to be desired. What do you think?
Neel: yeah i mean we had some good heroics uh and uh you know i'm excited to see how today's match goes but so if we have first off against the uae mill and kamara put up 116 not out off of 84 so it's 130 odd strike rate very very impressive and then in the next one and the next one versus uh namibia our openers both patels one of them put up uh 50 when i put up a century
American Over: Mhm.
Neel: uh so very very exciting you know those these guys at the top have been doing uh a pretty good job. I mean, don't look now, but. Who was it? One of our guys just got just took a wicket against the UAE. Uh...
American Over: Yeah, Shivam Ranjanay.
Neel: Shubham Ranjanet. Yeah. Yeah.
American Over: Yeah, who who also hit a half century in that first match against the UAE. So, I mean, there's a there's there's some definite excitement going on. It's nice to see Milind Kumar and Monang Patel get some centuries here. It's nice to see them kind of settle into their... like i i think We were talking about this a little bit earlier, Neil.
American Over: I i feel like ODI is very much a stamina game. And when associate nations don't get to play red ball cricket in the same way that, you know, someone who plays the Rungy Trophy or or county cricket gets to.
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: it's hard I think it's hard to build that stamina.
Neel: Yeah. Yeah. So I think you were mentioning about the squads. I think let's talk about the squad a little bit and kind of introduce some of these folks or reintroduce in some cases these folks. You mentioned, yeah, we got a lot of all rounders. uh and i think that is definitely downstream of your concern about about stamina right so Maybe we can go over some of the the starting 11 that they have. And I think the squad's been pretty similar in the UAE game, the Namibia game, and the current ongoing UAE game. Pretty similar 11.
Neel: Yeah, you want to run through some of the top guys? We got two Patels, Smith Patel and Monag Patel. Two guys up on top.
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: Simone got 108 off 100. In the last game, Smith got 50. We just talked about that. And then Mildred Kumar did a great job for himself again in the last the previous match. And then other batsmen, we got Shehan Jayasuriya, 35 -year -old in Sri Lanka.
Neel: Batting third. Pretty solid all -rounder spinner guy. You remember Saitaja Mokumala? We've mentioned his name a lot. Uh,
American Over: Yeah, Texas Super Kings.
Neel: I think he was. Yeah, it's kind of like...
American Over: it's He's young to be a number four.
Neel: 22. He's 22.
American Over: He's young to be a number four on a team.
Neel: He's put up a century in T20s. He's done well for that in od and ODIs. He bats 150 strike rate in T20s. Like, very impressive young kid. you know. it's interesting you got you know the the current team is all kind of south asian origin you got a bunch of older guys in there let's say mid -30s from this subcontinent.
American Over: Yeah.
American Over: Mhm.
Neel: and You got a bunch of really cool young guys from the USA. And Cytage, I think, is one of those.
American Over: Yep.
Neel: That latter group, and he's a really exciting young kid to watch.
American Over: Yeah, another one of those is Sanjay Krishnamurti, who bats, you know, right below Shubham Ranjane. He's a... i mean it seems like he can be an incredible you know all -rounding you know kind of finisher right in t20s his uh his average is 32 his strike rate is 143 which is Hi.
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: And even in ODIs, right, his his average... kind of is again that 22 23 which playing down where he does makes a ton of sense but that high strike rate of 97 i think it means that you know you've got some young finishers and he's he's 23 from corvallis so you know he's uh you know some of some of those locals really getting into the game
Neel: c Incredible yeah.
Neel: Yeah, you know. you know we so we got you know we also got nether valker we got harmeet singh right some really good guys kind of uh bullying as well so what i'm interested to see is you know right now we have you know these 30 some vets from the subcontinent 20 year old kids from america i'm excited to see as these guys enter their prime let's say five six seven years
American Over: the classics
Neel: I want to see what Sanjay Krishnamoorthy and Mukamala and these guys can put up, right, with their, like, 28, 29.
American Over: Mhm.
Neel: And, you know, they have other young guys coming coming in behind them. Uh, I also did the same thing a while ago. I remember I i looked at the US team like five, 10 years ago, right? It was also a bunch of 20 somethings from America. So I don't know where those guys have gone.
Neel: Maybe there's a kind of structural thing where these guys just don't stick around in the league or or whatever for whatever reason.
American Over: Yep.
Neel: But, you know, we've got to hope this time is different. right and these guys can you know. Keep building up the pipeline. Learn from these really good, you know, players who've come from abroad and now play over the cheap for Team USA.
American Over: Mm -hmm.
Neel: And you know once we have that crop of like kind of really good homegrown talent, I think we can be on. you know playing well on the international stage.
American Over: yeah i completely agree i like that's that's a lot of what i'm thinking about right it's like How do you, how do you. Cultivate this talent.
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: that doesn't get to play a whole lot of odis and and doesn't even get to play any red ball cricket and actually build that stamina because here's the risk right yes dallas is a small ground yes it's probably a flat surface right it it kind of looked like that uh from you know from the broadcast
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: But... consistently conceding 300 330 That's not a great sign for the bowling, right?
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: Like, you do have Ehsan Adil, like, taking a forefoot. You have Harmeet Singh taking a forefoot. and And, you know, it's interesting that one of them's a fastball or one of them's a spinner, but a lot of their wickets still came in the death.
American Over: when the ua or and namibia were trying to accelerate right like that's obviously that's when you're going to get wickets lower down the order it makes sense but conceding 15 extras slow over rate these are all right these are all signs of not having that much stamina to to play out and you know even in this match the one that's going on right now they decided to to field they had they won the toss and decided to field I would have expected them to test their boulders a little bit more.
American Over: and and push their bowlers to close that close down uh an upcoming chase and i think that's a sign of confidence in the bowlers which or or i guess lack thereof which is a little bit concerning to me as we sort of get into you know as we get into big tournaments right you we won league two as we look at the qualifier we should look to be in the top four it's not
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: It's no longer enough, I think. to keep winning League 2 and then being okay with being bottom of the table in the qualifier.
Neel: Yeah, so let's let's break this down for everybody. So we talked last week about how there's going to be 14, well, kind of 12, but officially 14 teams. in the ODI World Cup.
Neel: And so basically what's going to happen is... We are. Topping the table, this League 2. uh core qualifiers so this is usa scotland netherlands and oman will advance to the next round.
Neel: And then there's Namibia, Nepal, Canada, and the UAE, who are the bottom four of this table. It's kind of a shame, right? Like, Canada looked pretty good.
American Over: Mm hmm.
Neel: Namibia looked pretty good. right in these in these t20 world cups uh i feel for nepal and they also put up a pretty good showing maybe they're just not as mature as like in terms of being odi sides i guess
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: But it's kind of an unusual world, right? Where like Oman makes the cut and like Namibia doesn't. Because I've always thought of Namibia as one of the like... Top flight. you know, associate nations, right?
Neel: What was your read on that?
American Over: Yeah. I... I... You know, I'm i'm not sure what's been what they've been struggling with. I think it's it's been a series of close games.
American Over: And they do have some turnover on their in their squads, right? A lot of the a lot of the old guard. is is kind of settling out.
Neel: Yeah, that's true.
American Over: And you still have some folks like you know Erasmus that are that are around. But i think I think that's the situation that you're sort of ending ending up with, is that you know you've got you've got younger players coming in.
American Over: And there's obviously, they're good. There's nothing wrong with that. but you know like even in this match against the u .s right van lingen 28 he He hit a century.
American Over: but it just Wasn't enough because it was it did end up being a close game
Neel: Yeah. Uh, Okay, so, you know... Tough for those guys, but they still have a chance. The Namibians and Canadians, they still have a chance of redemption. So what's going to happen, basically...
Neel: is uh there's now going to be a qualifier round. So we qualified for the qualifiers.
American Over: Mm hmm.
Neel: Right. So, you know, take a week and get right. But. uh basically so for the real qualifier there's 10 teams right and i think they're fighting is it is it four spots right that they're fighting for in the real world cup
American Over: I...
Neel: Uh...
American Over: It's... dude it's weird bro it's two spots in the ten in the
Neel: Something like that. Uh,
American Over: 12 -team World Cup and four spots in the 14 -team World Cup.
Neel: Right, so there's there's four that will go in and maybe two of them will advance so there's
American Over: It's very weird. Yeah.
Neel: I should correct my previous state. We qualified for a qualifier to the qualifier. Right.
American Over: That's right. That sounds right.
Neel: a Point is, so this this real qualifier, at which point you have made it to be one of the top 14. So there's going to be 10 teams that are in there. So West Indies and Ireland got in because basically they were the top ranked teams that didn't make. the World Cup outright.
Neel: So those are two of them.
American Over: Mhm.
Neel: Four of them are the ones who just topped this table. So that means us the USA is qualified for this. qualifier of 10 right so that's going to be usa scotland Netherlands and Oman, right?
Neel: So that's two, so we got six. Now. There's four more spots. There is yet another different qualifier bracket. And that qualifier bracket will send four teams off to the main qualifier. right and so In that.
Neel: like losers bracket so to speak you have the Not losers, but like you have that that that other minor kind of bracket. You have the four losers from this league. So Nepal and Namibia and all these guys, they go to that side.
Neel: there's Italy, Uganda, and then I think two other teams yet to be determined.
American Over: Yep.
Neel: So that looked pretty cool.
American Over: From the qualifiers to the qualifiers to the qualifiers to the qualifiers league, the challenges the challenge league, where you know you've got teams like Jersey or Papua New Guinea, for example, that that could qualify up.
Neel: I mean...
Neel: Good Lord.
Neel: Right.
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: It seems like Jersey probably will qualify and and you know a couple other teams to be determined.
Neel: Yeah.
Neel: Yeah, you know, I mean, I would love to see Jersey play Italy. you know in the
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: In cricket, right? so yeah so basically like that that lower bracket still yet to be determined there'll be some playoff or playing of some sort right and then those four will go up to this qualifier league USA needs to be one of the top.
Neel: I guess, four teams out of this. uh to make it to the the ODI World Cup happening next year. So... Out of the 10 teams, like you got to imagine, as I said last week, West Indies, Iowa would probably be two of them.
Neel: And then there's basically realistically two spots, right? We may say the three and four seed, or I don't know, maybe there's an upset.
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: But. Realistically, the third and fourth seed will be for whoever out of that can do well. And honestly, like, you know, Team USA has put up a good showing top of this table, right? So they would, you know, you coming in, you would imagine to basically be the third seed. Right. Just kind of in terms of.
Neel: projected team strength. out of these 10 so you know i would give the us s a pretty good chance i would hope to make it uh to the big dance so to speak Uh... I'm not sure when those games are going to be.
Neel: But I think those are going to be kind of the big the next really big series for Team USA is this is this qualifier series.
American Over: Yeah, I mean, that's my... My biggest concern. is that The U S. had qualified in the past. And the.
American Over: They didn't make it all the way And they were bottom of the table in the past. And so that's that's sort of my concern is that. know How do you keep that momentum up? How do you keep that excitement up?
American Over: like The qualifiers, I just looked them up. They're in February and March in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Neel: Okay.
American Over: right So you're going to be playing on very different types of pitches.
Neel: That's cool. Yeah
American Over: You're going to be playing on very different types of grounds than what you're used to. South Africa, famously, like you know some of those grounds are smaller, but some of them are also pretty big. And.
American Over: you know the There's. There are pitches that aren't as... you know American pitches and even Indian pitches for that matter are very flat, which is not something that you should expect in South Africa and Zimbabwe. so you know will this these are places where frankly the bowling will have to stand up in my opinion and uh the the batting will have to keep up
American Over: Because on tougher pitches, you're not going to be able to you're not going to be able to smooth over rough bowling. with uh impeccable batting coming off of flat pitches so you know We're going to have to see where where this takes us.
Neel: So, Reuven, before the show, you were talking about how we were carrying seven all -rounders, or seven bowlers, rather. which I think is pretty common, right? Is your fear that like, we're not going to have You know, we'll have Sarabnath Ravalkar and maybe a couple other top flight harmy a couple guy at top white guys. Are you worried that we're going to have like 20 overs be eaten by these kind of... average all -rounders or are you going to be worried that like no one's going to be able to hold up their side talking out of the depth like what's what What are you seeing? like What's the concern you're worried about?
American Over: Yeah, I... i I think it's more common for top international teams to have... five bowling options and maybe a sixth, right?
Neel: Yep. Yeah.
American Over: A couple of all -rounders and then maybe an all -rounder who is a part -timer, so to speak.
Neel: Yep.
American Over: And the part -timer is kind of dying and even all -rounders are reducing in quality, right? Because they're valued less and less nowadays in T20 cricket, which is what most of these guys get to play.
American Over: But that's... This is a different ballgame. No, no pun intended and I think you you have to cultivate you have to cultivate a bench of Solid.
American Over: true bowling options. Because you can't keep relying on you know your top order to to perform. like let's say milan kumar monang patel have an off day What are you going to do, right? Smith Patel doesn't get a you know decent you know a decent strong start, you know, 30 to 50. out the gates what are you going to do right and if you're stuck defending you know if you're if you haven't practiced defending scores which these guys you know
American Over: had the opportunity to and chose not to. Are your bowlers going to understand how they perform under pressure and where they need support and what they should be thinking about? I d - i don't know and look maybe i'm reading too much into this particular toss right maybe they're just thinking hey i would rather have the experience of winning as opposed to testing my team but i i just I think...
American Over: I think you should be playing the long game As opposed to, you know, trying to win each match, in in in my opinion. in my opinion.
Neel: but That makes sense. Like these. These guys probably aren't going to get another bite at the apple in terms of ODI cricket. for quite a while, I would imagine, right? I don't know if USA has any... kind of friendlies or whatever wind up but there's only aren't any odi franchise leagues right Uh...
American Over: No.
Neel: So this is their their last chance, out you know, and in terms of like real, you know, game.
American Over: No.
Neel: game speed practice. uh until February and that's that's when things really start to count and all of a sudden you know
American Over: Yeah.
American Over: Yep.
Neel: The USA comes in, again, as I said, maybe third seed if you want to put it that way. but Like those are serious matches, right? Uh...
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: You definitely, you're right. You would want to kind of build that culture. I mean, I think building culture of winning is probably the best thing, but. uh yeah i think like you know, all of their chases have just been like I think the last two games, right, were both USA Chase with seven, I think exactly seven balls left in both cases.
American Over: Mhm.
Neel: We finished at 48 .5 overs, right?
American Over: mm -hmm
Neel: which is you know great exciting fun chases right and you know it does kind of force you to kind of bat well to death right kind of come up clutch so to speak But on the other hand, yeah, being able to have a nice dominating kind of win where you just kind of, you know.
Neel: Put up a good total. Your bowl is a water bowl ad. kind of cruise to victory.
American Over: Yep.
Neel: That's also an important format. uh to be able to have right
American Over: Like you're look you're going to be up against the west indies you're going to be up against
Neel: It's crazy. Yeah, yeah.
American Over: Yeah You're going to be up against Ireland. The West Indies and India are playing right now. And West Indies just bowled India out.
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: One of the deepest, strongest batting lineups.
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: They just pulled them out. And yeah, okay, granted, you could say it's a T20, right? It's different. But no, like it's a very flat pitch that they just pulled them out on.
Neel: Hmm.
American Over: you're going to be facing quality bowling you're going to be facing and even more quality batting. you have to You have... And you, and if you want to go toe to toe with them and be. Take this.
American Over: take the U .S. to the world stage of cricket. I think you should be testing your bowlers more. that's That's just my personal take on this.
Neel: I'm with you. I'm with you.
American Over: Yep.
Neel: Uh... So yeah, now now kind of speaking about like what are these guys going to do in the coming offseason? You want to talk about minor league cricket? This is pretty cool. this is We have not just Major League Cricket. We have another domestic league.
Neel: uh that is currently ongoing in fact the super eights so kind of the the playoff so to speak are just starting uh and you know a lot of familiar faces from major league cricket from team usa of course not these guys who are playing here right but some Pretty well known, folks. are playing in minor league cricket. So you want to kind of introduce... this is this format
American Over: Yeah, I mean, it's super exciting, right? Like you've got a ton of teams around the country a bunch of a bunch of uh a bunch of regional like divisions so you've got like east south central and i think north uh or no i'm sorry west you're right you're right you're right
Neel: Yeah.
Neel: Whoa. West. West. Yeah. So it's it's a T20 league. right and you have 26 teams as you said into four spread across four divisions
American Over: Mhm.
Neel: So it's actually, what it's like, it's four times bigger than major league cricket, which is really surprising, you know? Uh... And yeah, as you said, North. South. Central and West.
Neel: I'm sorry. I think it's east, south, central, and west. Yes, that's what that's what it is.
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: Uh... and there's something really there's like some strange breakdown where like They all have six teams, except the central is eight. And in the West is like two subdivisions, like groups of three.
Neel: and the central's two subdivisions of four and then the other guy's just like six each And then... i think something like the top seed from each of these like six groups qualified for the super eights than like two wild cards
Neel: It's... it's a time -honored american tradition of bizarre playoff qualification formats i love it you know true american sports league right but did you notice any kind of familiar faces or kind of anything like that with some of these teams here
American Over: Yeah, I mean, a couple. Well, first of all, a family friend is the captain of the Seattle Thunderbolts. So that's it.
Neel: No way. Oh, that's so funny.
American Over: Yeah, I know. What are the odds, right? What are the odds?
Neel: Was this is the same guy who was a net bowler for the orcas?
American Over: so that
Neel: You had a friend like that?
American Over: yeah that's right that's right exactly so they've got that they've got that relationship and then the other The other sort of side of this that that I think is cool is, I mean, you've got Neto Rolker playing.
Neel: No way. Oh, cool. Yeah. Amen. That's great.
American Over: You've got Harmeet Singh playing.
Neel: wow
American Over: You've got Smith Patel playing. All of these guys, you know, Neto Rolker is going to be on the Silicon Valley Strikers. That makes sense. Monang Patel on the New Jersey Stallions.
Neel: Yep.
American Over: Harmeet Singh on the Thunderbolts.
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: Shubham Ranjane, Stephen Taylor, Shayan Jahangir. Like all these big MLC USA names. all over all over and i think one of the other things that's interesting is mlc is proper franchise cricket so you have a ton of uh international players right jumping in for for matches You just don't see that much of that on the minor league side, which is good.
American Over: Because if you think of this as like a developmental league for the national cricketers.
Neel: yeah
American Over: think that's what you want right i think that's what you want you want locals getting to play semi -professional cricket.
Neel: Yeah, you know and it does seem some of these guys are playing for their local quote -unquote teams. Right. uh you know maybe a little bit distance away and they don't quite play in those cities and we'll talk about that in a second But it's cool, you know, like this is kind of giving the feeling, okay, like we're actually going to have, you know, but a bunch of Oracle, Google engineers playing in Silicon Valley, right? You got the New Jersey folks playing for the Somerset Cavaliers. Good name, by the way.
Neel: Right.
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: And that's cool.
American Over: goodness speaking of names
Neel: you know you know Yeah.
American Over: There's some interesting names here, huh
Neel: I honestly, I don't mind them that much. So we have, we have the Manhattan Yorkers, which actually pretty good. Like that's, I was joking with that back in, I remember, I think I made a joke in like one of our earlier episodes about like.
American Over: That's a good name.
Neel: Come on. Am I in New York? like you got the yorkers right there so they got it they understood the memo so good for them
American Over: Yep.
Neel: uh, There are the Philadelphians. Which, like... Listen, as a Philly sports fan, I can't complain about uncreative team names because we got like the Philadelphia Phillies is our baseball team, which is like.
Neel: not original whatsoever i mean it's kind of cool It's retro, but it's kind of not original. Anyway. The Philadelphians. That's kind of cool. I'll give him that. the la lashings is maybe a little bit bizarre uh team name it's definitely memorable Michigan Cricket Stars, NYC Titans, a little cheesy.
Neel: But I got some good ones. Chicago Kingsman. is pretty neat. I like that.
American Over: It's not bad That's not bad.
Neel: I would love to see a chess theme, but I think it's more generic royalty. I think it's the Baltimore Royals. I think they got, which is kind of cool. Atlanta has the fire and the lightning. So it's actually really interesting.
Neel: many there's 26 teams many areas have multiple teams so new york city has two Jersey has two. Atlanta has two.
American Over: mm -hmm
Neel: Dallas has, I think, three.
American Over: Wow.
Neel: Chicago's got two. The Bay Area's got... three i think there's like one in sacramento i think if i remember correctly right uh and then you got you got some pretty good cool cool ones you got Seattle, you got San Diego, you got St. Louis.
Neel: north carolina orlando detroit new england which is in hartford not boston right
American Over: Heh heh.
Neel: uh but you got a pretty pretty good variety you know like If you were a cricket fan and like across the USA. you probably have a team reasonably nearby i think maybe you're missing like the denver kind of area right but
American Over: Sure.
Neel: like that middle that kind of west central area but like it's pretty good it's pretty good And they actually play in real venues. I think they actually have more venue diversity. than Major League Cricket had.
Neel: Uh...
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: which I think you mentioned that like, it's probably because they don't have to have like a... a grandstand they don't have to support fans you can just play wherever right But it's pretty cool.
Neel: The New York City teams, and I think Philadelphia too. They play up in Schenectady, which is up by Albany. or halfway up there.
American Over: mm -hmm
Neel: It is the only international standard cricket facility. featuring pristine natural turf, which is a nice way of saying... turf is i don't know if that means grass or turf but anyway
American Over: Heh.
Neel: The entire one of those in the Northeast, which is cool. And then there's like some cricket academies in Milpitas, California. That's all one. There's one like St. Louis. There's Grand Prairie in Texas that you play there.
Neel: There's the Church Street one in Morrisville. So actually pretty good venues. i'm actually pretty impressed
American Over: Yeah, wow I mean, it's it seems like a really fleshed out, like honestly well -run...
Neel: Yeah. Yeah.
American Over: from what we can tell league and so we're getting into the super eights which you want to talk a little bit about the format here
Neel: Yeah.
Neel: Yeah, so as as I mentioned, so you got the six group winners. So again, for some strange reason. The East is like, oh, there's six teams, only one can qualify. But in the West, it's like there's like two subgroups in the division and like.
Neel: of two of three each, and then like the top of those guys advances. A little bizarre, I don't know why, but...
American Over: Heh.
Neel: Mobile, that's what it is. But I think the Manhattan Yorkers made it as a wild card. So maybe they have something about like the the best team who's not. in in maybe in the bigger divisions. made I don't know. I didn't look into it.
Neel: uh that much But yeah, so. uh Actually, do you know about the Super 8 format? I know about how they qualified, but do you know what we're looking at in terms of like how long it's going to take? the The regular season was like every team played like five, six matches, so it wasn't that long.
American Over: Yeah. So...
Neel: It's been less than a month since they started. Now they're already in super eights. Do you know what that format is going to look like?
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: And then basically the final will be the winner of each group.
Neel: Okay.
Neel: Yep.
American Over: And so you kind of only are playing three matches each. I think they're going to do them all in parallel because the Super 8s really just start like in in a few days.
Neel: Yep.
American Over: And then the final is on the 23rd. So there isn't a whole lot of time for...
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: for a lot of matches here, but I do. I kind of like the idea of a Super 8 over... over knockouts like i've seen you know t20 world cup do that I think i think that's there's value to that. There's value to that.
Neel: Yeah, I think like to an American mind like we can't like comprehend that. like Everything is is going to be a knockout series.
American Over: mm -hmm
Neel: right you mean It could be best of three, five, seven, or best of one in some cases.
American Over: Yep.
Neel: right But it's fun. i'm like you know You get less maybe drama in that case, but like there's more meaningful. more meaningful games going on, right? And, you know, like...
Neel: If your team has an off day, you can still kind of come back from it. Uh... which I tend to like. I like the format, I think, and was it 24? World Cup or like. you did i think you did like super eights and then from there i think there's like a knockout stage or something like that like a bit of a hybrid's kind of cool
American Over: The knockouts. Yeah.
Neel: so you and you have your breaker season which is a group stage you have your super eights which is group stage and then you can start moving on to knockouts because i think it is it is cool to have like a knockout series like that it's dramatic especially because odi is like like teach why you can lose on a fluke.
Neel: Maybe you can maybe and make that argument, but like ODI, like you're really competing.
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: or so not well'll sorry that's another one yeah sorry this is still t20 but uh You could do a series of three, I guess, in T20 if you really wanted to, but... He's probably wouldn't. uh so i could make you could make that argument that like oh like a group stage is more kind of flexible and i do like that uh But this ought to be set up with a drama, right?
Neel: Of like a...
American Over: Yep.
Neel: Kind of. Winter moves on. Loser takes off, right?
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: i would maybe drop the thing about like you remember the different from mlc where it's like Uh... there's there's like the qualifier then there's a limited later and then then like the guy who the team that lost the other qualifier gets to come back for redemption that's just a little strange i would keep it simple and just do straight up knockout but honestly you do some kind of a hybrid format like that like as you said with super eights and then leading into the kind of knockout rounds that'll be cool you know and look like I don't know.
American Over: Yeah. Yep.
American Over: Yeah.
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: if Fans are going to go watch this. It's a developmental league. right but i think it's pretty cool didn't didn't you say they were streaming it right for free somewhere
American Over: Yeah, it's all on YouTube so you can watch these live matches the entire the entire way through on YouTube and I think you know, all those scores and whatnot is on the, on the MLC and and minor league cricket websites, which is really cool. I think like.
American Over: it it it It does seem like... you know. 26 teams, 11 players each, right? Plus some squad depth. like that's at least a few hundred players getting uh you know getting
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: semi -professional high -quality broadcasted teams or broadcasted matches that's That's got to be big for the sport.
Neel: I mean it's...
American Over: That's got to be real big for the sport.
Neel: You're putting you know good quality play on tape like on YouTube, you know
American Over: Yeah.
Neel: Like you're building that game film, right? Which is. you know really good for them.
American Over: Exactly.
Neel: They're putting up interesting stats. They're playing against the best players. and I think you're all you're right. I think the fact that it's going to be primarily like an American -focused thing is really good because now that talent development, so to speak, is going to stay in -house.
American Over: Yep.
Neel: You lose the ability to learn from you know the best Aussies or whoever who would come in for MLC. right But here, you know like you can definitely see all the investments you make in player development stay within...
Neel: kind of the the country, right? Like you're you're training your own kind of team who could then eventually kind of Move up. so that's great i think the tele televised aspect is great because you know major league cricket was like a nightmare to go see right Like.
Neel: you know will tv does not make it easy you know as i'll say right And, you know, especially for a league that's probably not going to draw that many in -person fans, more of an investment, like having good quality cricket on YouTube is like actually very rare.
Neel: right like i can see a lot of people even from abroad who would want to tune in and see this
American Over: a hundred percent
Neel: But again. Great for the sport, right? Like you're going to see a lot of people maybe. even from India, from England, Australia, who like start knowing some of these. you know american players and that's how you kind of get yourself as a country onto that global stage.
American Over: 100%. Well, Neil, this was a ton of fun. We got to go out and celebrate and and definitely got to keep watching this this USA -UAE match. I'm now getting distracted by by you know all the action going on over there.
Neel: Yeah.
American Over: But i think i think there's a lot of big things I think there's a lot of big things to come.
Neel: You know, every week I'm just amazed. There's so many cool new developments in in American cricket. And it's a really exciting time and place to be. And I'm glad that, you know, I got you here and we can get to. Cover this, you know? on the regular.
American Over: Exactly.
Neel: All right. well
American Over: Okay.
Neel: Have a good week Over and out.
American Over: The...
