- Wednesday, April 23, 2025
From Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, to Adobe Inc’s Shantanu Narayen to Shah Rukh Khan, the Major League Cricket has seen a lot of big names’ involvement.
By: Shubham Ghosh
HE wanted to become a cricketer but life had other plans for him. But even as he became a venture capitalist, Anurag Jain’s love for the game never dipped and now, he has the opportunity of his life to relive his cricket dream, albeit from outside the 22 yards.
The managing partner at Perot Jain, a venture capital company he co-founded with Texas billionaire Ross Perot Junior, the Indian-origin Jain is waiting to make a much bigger impact on cricket, than he could have even with the bat or ball.
With Perot, Jain is now part-owner of the Texas Super Kings, a team which has been set up this year based in Dallas.
According to a report by D Magazine in May last year, Jain has focused on reviving his passion about cricket, joining a $44 million funding round with the likes of Perot Jr, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Adobe Inc. CEO Shantanu Narayen, Indian actor-businessman Shah Rukh Khan and others to bring Major League Cricket (MLC) in the US. The MI New York team is owned by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Mumbai Indians.
The MLC is co-founded by Indian-origin entrepreneurs Sameer Mehta and Vijay Srinivasan.
The business leader knows how popular the game of cricket is and wants to tap into some of its market.
The inaugural MLC kicked off on Thursday (13) and the Texas Super Kings, backed by the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) Chennai Super Kings franchise, beat Los Angeles Knight Riders by 69 runs in the first match at the Grand Prairie Stadium, Texas.
Jain is in the league of influential Indian-born business people who are bringing one of the world’s most popular sports to the American shore.
“My vested interest was to bring cricket right into the heart of America,” Jain said in an interview, Bloomberg reported.
“I see a lot of cricket being played one off, club level, league level, at the local levels. But not at the professional level and that’s what I really wanted to change,” he added.
Cricket’s popularity has been steadily growing in the US over the years, particularly in places that have large south Asian populations, including Houston, New York and Los Angeles.
The advent of T20 cricket, the game’s shortest format, and the sky-high popularity of the IPL which kicked off in 2008, has attracted top names from the film and business fraternity and the game has received a massive monetary boost as a result.
In May, Bloomberg reported that Tiger Global Management is in advanced talks to buy a stake in Rajasthan Royals for $40 million, valuing the team at $650 million.
Investors have already promised to pour $120 million into the MCL showing confidence that by luring international stars, cricket can emerge as a major stop-stopper in the US and utilise a global fan base.
Jain, who grew up in India’s Chennai, told Bloomberg that he was at one point of time the city’s fastest bowler and wanted to play professional cricket. But later in his life, he discovered the sport’s economics.
“Cricketers in those days made like $1.50 per game and they had probably 20 match days a year. So that wasn’t enough money and my dad sat me down and said, ‘look son your cricketer days are done, you need to go back and become an engineer,'” he was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.
With cricket, South Asian food was also making its presence felt at the venues of MLC and that is a good advertisement both for the game and the place where it has the topmost popularity.
Players have also arrived in the US from around the world to take part in MLC.
For instance, Cody Chetty, a former first class cricketer from South Africa who appeared for the Texas Super Kings, took a risk to sign a contract with MLC in 2020 and moved to California with his wife.
Since shifting to the US, he has been teaching cricket to young people while working as a real-estate agent and waiting for the league to begin. He has also been surprised by the level of interest people harbour in the game in Los Angeles and sees it as his long-term home.
