A month after silencing the boisterous Super Kings fans with a blistering hundred in the IPL, Marcus Stoinis is set to don the yellow for the same franchise, albeit in their American avatar. The Australian all-rounder will join fellow WACA player Aaron Hardie, Daryl Mitchell, South African T20 skipper Aiden Markram and Naveen Ul Haq at the Texas Super Kings for the second season of MLC.
Stoinis, set to turn 35 in August, is part of Australia’s World Cup squad in the Caribbean but is without an Australian central contract for the 2024 season. However, he remains a force in the T20 circuit, coming fresh off an excellent IPL season when he scored close to 400 runs in the middle-order across 12 innings, and at a healthy strike rate of 150.
A slew of Australian T20 superstars including Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell and Travis Head are set to feature in the MLC this year. Stoinis, in fact, has experience of the league having turned out for the San Francisco Unicorns last year. The league finds itself richer with top-class Australian talent, a very coveted tenet for any successful T20 league in the world. In a seeming shift of the cricketing world order, only four Australian players will be part of the action at this year’s The Hundred competition. The MLC, on the other hand, will engage more than 10 frontline Aussie cricketers.
“Signing a world-class player like Pat Cummins is a testament to the calibre of talent the league is attracting, underscoring our global impact and the success of the inaugural season,” said MLC CEO Vijay Srinivasan in a media release on Tuesday after the announcement of Cummins’ signing, which Cricbuzz was first to break on Sunday.
“It elevates the level of competition fans will get to see and experience on home soil and showcases our commitment to bringing the top-tier players in the world to play in America’s very own league.”