Captain Mitchell Santner on Wednesday backed New Zealand Cricket’s decision not to own a team in Major League Cricket’s 2027 edition. NZC on Wednesday announced that it will not proceed with its plans to have a team based in either Toronto or Atlanta in the American league. Major League Cricket currently features six teams — Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Texas and Washington, D.C. — and intends to expand to 10 teams. NZC was in partnership with True North Sports Ventures to execute the plan of owning a team in MLC, but the agreement, which was announced in 2025, has now been terminated.
“You can’t do everything and it’s going to be a solid investment in both,” Santner told reporters, referring to the national board’s plans to launch its own domestic T20 league featuring overseas players.
“For them to back a home-soil competition is cool. If that gets it off the ground, that’s what we want.”
NZC had earlier postponed the launch of its men’s and women’s T20 competition, NZ20, from January 2027 to December 2027.
“It’s going to benefit domestic players as well by giving them a platform to showcase their talent on a major stage. Obviously, with overseas players coming in, there’ll be more backing from some big teams and investors.
“Again, you’re putting yourself on a big stage in front of a lot of people and that’s the goal. And then it opens up doors to play franchise cricket,” Santner said.
The New Zealand captain said having Kiwi cricketers play around the world would only add to their experience.
“The more guys can play around the world, as we’ve seen in international cricket, as a team when we have gone to different countries and done well, it’s because of the experiences we’ve had in those conditions,” Santner said.
“It’s going to be better, everyone’s going to be better for it. And even guys like Tim Seifert, who has gone away, played all over the world and come back a very, very good player. The same is true with Finn Allen, so there are two good sides to it,” he added.
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