# Chicago Tigers (cricket)

The Chicago Tigers are an American professional Twenty20 cricket team based in the Chicago metropolitan area that competes in Minor League Cricket (MiLC). It was formed in 2022 as part of 3 new teams to play in the 2022 Minor League Cricket season. The franchise is owned by Raiders Unlimited.
The team's home ground is Hanover Park, located near Chicago. Ex-South African cricketers Calvin Savage and Marques Ackerman helm captaincy and vice-captaincy duties respectively.
Saad Ali and Sami Sohail currently top the bowling and batting leaderboards with 405 runs and 22 wickets respectively.

## Franchise history
### Background

Talks of an American Twenty20 league formed in November 2018, before USA Cricket became the new governing body of cricket in the United States. In May 2021, USA Cricket announced that they had accepted a bid by American Cricket Enterprises (ACE) for a US$1 billion investment covering the league and other investments benefiting the U.S. national teams.
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, but it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and due to the lack of high-quality cricket stadiums in the USA. Major League Cricket was pushed to a summer-2023 launch and Minor League Cricket was pushed back to July 31, 2021.
In 2020, MLC launched the Chicago Catchers, the predecessor cricket team to the Chicago Tigers. The Catchers performed poorly during the inaugural season of Minor League Cricket, which thus forced MLC to terminate the Catchers after the season ended amid internal issues within the franchise.
Following the termination of the Catchers, MLC announced the formation of the Tigers in May 2022, ahead of the 2022 Minor League Cricket season draft. It was later announced that the Tigers was owned by Raiders Unlimited, which was owned by sports enthusiast and business entrepreneur Vishal Shah.

### 2022 season

Ahead of the 2022 season, Major League Cricket announced that the draft for that season would take place on May 12. Ahead of the official season, it was announced that Calvin Savage and Marques Ackerman would helm captaincy and vice-captaincy duties throughout the season.
Throughout the season, the Tigers lost to the Strikers and Lashings once, won once and lost once against the Athletics, Mustangs, and Americans, won once against the Surf Riders, and won twice against the Blasters. The Tigers finished second in their group, and advanced to the quarter-finals, wherein they lost to the Strikers 2-1 in a best-of-three series.

## Current squad

* Players with international caps are listed in bold.
* * denotes a player who is currently unavailable for selection.
* * denotes a player who is unavailable for rest of the season
| Name | Birth date | Batting style | Bowling style | Signed year | Notes |
| Batsmen |||||||
| Charan Sai Teja | (1996-05-25) 25 May 1996 (age 28) | Left-handed | Right-arm medium | 2022 | |
| Karan Kumar | (1992-09-08) 8 September 1992 (age 32) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium | 2022 | Overseas |
| Rishi Mehta | (1993-11-13) 13 November 1993 (age 31) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium fast | 2022 | |
| All-rounders |||||||
| Calvin Savage | (1993-01-04) 4 January 1993 (age 32) | Right-handed | Right-arm fast | 2022 | Overseas captain |
| Deepchand Pinnaka | (1990-07-17) 17 July 1990 (age 34) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium | 2022 | |
| Kushal Ganji | (1996-12-31) 31 December 1996 (age 28) | Right-handed | Right-arm fast | 2022 | |
| Manan Patel | (1987-05-16) 16 May 1987 (age 37) | Right-handed | Right-arm off break | 2022 | |
| Marques Ackerman | (1996-03-01) 1 March 1996 (age 28) | Left-handed | Right-arm off break | 2022 | Overseas vice-captain |
| Mittansh Nithiyanandam | (2006-04-26) 26 April 2006 (age 18) | Left-handed | Left-arm medium | 2022 | |
| Ocarie Sims | (1995-02-11) 11 February 1995 (age 29) | Right-handed | Right-arm leg break googly | 2022 | |
| Prateer Mehta | (1996-06-25) 25 June 1996 (age 28) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium fast | 2022 | |
| Ranadeep Aleti | (1993-07-12) 12 July 1993 (age 31) | Right-handed | Right-arm fast | 2022 | |
| Rohit Thete | (1990-04-10) 10 April 1990 (age 34) | Right-handed | Right-arm off break | 2022 | |
| Sami Sohail | (2002-01-29) 29 January 2002 (age 22) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium | 2022 | |
| Saad Ali | (1993-10-05) 5 October 1993 (age 31) | Left-handed | Right-arm medium | 2022 | |
| Tejas Visal | (2003-03-03) 3 March 2003 (age 21) | Right-handed | Right-arm leg break googly | 2022 | |
| Wicket-keepers |||||||
| Sunny Bhatti | (1991-12-30) 30 December 1991 (age 33) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium fast | 2022 | |

## Statistics
### Most runs

| Player | Span | Matches | Innings | Runs | Average | HS | 100 | 50 |
| Saad Ali | 2022–present | 13 | 13 | 405 | 33.75 | 69 | 0 | 1 |
| Marques Ackerman | 2022–present | 16 | 16 | 316 | 21.07 | 73 | 0 | 1 |
| Karan Kumar | 2022–present | 13 | 13 | 297 | 27.00 | 71 | 0 | 2 |
| Calvin Savage | 2022–present | 13 | 13 | 272 | 30.22 | 49 | 0 | 0 |
| Charan Sai Teja | 2022–present | 12 | 12 | 209 | 17.42 | 54 | 0 | 1 |
Source: CricClubs, Last updated: 9 January 2023

### Most wickets

| Player | Span | Matches | Wickets | Avg | BBI | Econ | SR | 4w | 5w |
| Sami Sohail | 2022–present | 16 | 22 | 19.68 | 6/33 | 8.20 | 14.4 | 1 | 1 |
| Calvin Savage | 2022–present | 13 | 17 | 15.12 | 4/9 | 5.24 | 17.3 | 1 | 0 |
| Ranadeep Aleti | 2022–present | 16 | 15 | 25.13 | 3/30 | 6.73 | 22.4 | 0 | 0 |
| Pruthvish Patel | 2022–present | 16 | 14 | 24.79 | 4/31 | 8.26 | 18.0 | 1 | 0 |
| Deepchand Pinnaka | 2022–present | 7 | 7 | 18.57 | 3/14 | 7.65 | 14.6 | 0 | 0 |
Source: CricClubs, Last updated: 9 January 2023