How USA conquered League 2 amid American cricket's chaos
Biggest sporting coup of the year? How USA conquered League 2 amid American cricket's chaos
USA captain Monank Patel began USA's World Cup League 2 campaign in August 2024 with a match-winning century against Canada. Twenty-six months later, he brought their title race to a fitting conclusion with another, his 108 against Namibia at Grand Prairie sealing USA's maiden League 2 crown with two matches still to spare. With 23 wins from 34 matches and 47 points, USA had established an unassailable lead at the top of the eight-team standings, securing the crown with two fixtures still to go.
Between those two centuries lay a journey that was anything but straightforward. USA Cricket was dysfunctional and at loggerheads with MLC, leading to courtroom battles and a player revolt that culminated in the mid-series dismissal of a head coach, USAC's suspension by the ICC and eventual bankruptcy. All the while, the national team continued travelling across continents, negotiating the unforgiving demands of League 2 and winning matches with a consistency that belied the turmoil surrounding it for three years.
It was an extraordinary exhibition of cricketing continuity amid institutional chaos. And the significance of the achievement becomes even more pronounced when viewed against USA's previous appearance at the World Cup Qualifiers in Zimbabwe in 2023. Having earned their place through a strong showing in the preceding League 2 cycle, USA arrived with ambitions of securing a maiden berth at the 50-over World Cup. Instead, a debilitating bout of illness swept through the squad, leaving several players incapacitated at different stages of the competition. Such was the predicament that USA found themselves struggling to assemble a fully fit playing XI, with unwell players having to take the field.
They returned without victory. The new qualification cycle offered an opportunity to start afresh, but the problems plaguing American cricket were far from over. When Monank's unbeaten 121 off 95 balls powered USA to a 14-run win over Canada in the Netherlands in August 2024, few would have envisaged the turbulence awaiting the team over the next two years.
Stuart Law, appointed head coach earlier that year, was dismissed midway through a home League 2 assignment in October following an unprecedented breakdown in relations with senior players. The episode exposed serious fissures within the dressing room, with allegations of favouritism, discrimination and the marginalisation of experienced players, including the captain himself, emerging in the aftermath.
For a side attempting to establish itself as a force in Associate cricket after their dream run in the 2024 T20 World Cup, the upheaval could scarcely have arrived at a more inopportune moment. Yet the coaching controversy was only one chapter in a much larger administrative crisis. The increasingly acrimonious relationship between USA Cricket and MLC had spilled into legal disputes, creating an environment in which players frequently found themselves caught between competing interests. Questions of allegiance and loyalty became an unwelcome distraction for cricketers whose primary responsibility was to represent their country.
The situation deteriorated further in 2025 when the ICC suspended USA Cricket for repeated governance failures. The board subsequently entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, leaving the administration of the national team's affairs in a state of considerable uncertainty. Player payments and the organisation of the high-performance programme became matters of concern before the ICC assumed responsibility for safeguarding the national teams' preparations.
“Whenever this kind of situation happened, I made sure that players were not being informed too much about the news, which can disturb them or which can affect the game. It was mostly handled by me and the coach. And whenever the situation happened, we tried to solve the situation. But every time when we were on the tour, there was something on and off going around. And the discussion between the guys was better not to get involved in those matters and try to, you know, focus on the game," said Monank.
The challenges extended well beyond the administrative turmoil, with even the logistics of international travel placing considerable strain on the players. During USA's Dubai assignment in 2025, the squad endured a roughly 15-hour journey in economy class before landing at around 1am. By the time they reached their hotel, it was approximately 3am. Barely six hours later, they were expected to report to the ground at 9am for their first practice match of the tour.
Such ordeals only magnified the scale of USA's League 2 triumph. Spread across several years and vastly different conditions, the competition demands sustained consistency despite long breaks, arduous travel and limited preparation time. USA's players managed all this while navigating circumstances hardly conducive to elite performance.
USA's situation was compounded by a prolonged absence of bilateral international cricket. While several of their Associate counterparts enjoyed opportunities against Full Member opposition, USA's international calendar remained entirely dependent on ICC competitions. Such was the level of dysfunction that USA have hosted only three bilateral T20I series in the past six years and have played no bilateral ODIs, either at home or away.
And yet, remarkably, the team continued to evolve. The return of Pubudu Dassanayake as head coach in 2025 brought a familiar presence back into the setup. Having previously worked extensively within American cricket, Dassanayake inherited a squad that had endured a difficult period of uncertainty and disruption. His arrival coincided with a decisive phase in the team's development, particularly the emergence of a younger generation increasingly comfortable with the demands of international cricket.
Few players embodied that evolution more emphatically than the newly crowned vice-captain, Saiteja Mukkamalla. The New Jersey-raised batter had scored just 150 runs in eight innings at an average of 18.75 in the previous League 2 cycle, a promising youngster still finding his feet in international cricket. In the current campaign, he has transformed into one of USA's most dependable batters, amassing 1,162 runs in 26 innings at 52.82, including three centuries and seven half-centuries.
His unbeaten 137 against UAE in Dubai and a blistering 104 off 75 balls against Scotland in Nepal offered contrasting demonstrations of a player capable of both anchoring an innings and taking the attack to the opposition. No longer merely a young prospect, Saiteja has established himself as one of the central figures in USA's batting order.
Sanjay Krishnamurthi has brought a different dimension to that emerging generation. His audacious strokeplay and temperament under pressure lend USA a level of explosiveness that has often proved decisive.
There was perhaps no better illustration than the extraordinary finish against Canada in June this year. With USA requiring eight runs off the final two deliveries, Sanjay launched a near-yorker-length low full toss from Kaleem Sana straight over the sightscreen for six before scrambling two runs from the final ball to complete a scarcely believable victory.
The difficulty of the stroke was not lost on Monank. In the dressing room afterwards, the captain remarked that Sanjay was perhaps the only player in the entire USA side with the skill to dispatch that particular delivery for six. It was a revealing endorsement of a young batter's abilities and was equally a reflection of the confidence USA had begun placing in its next generation.
"MLC has obviously helped develop Sai and Sanjay watching what the pros do behind the scenes for four seasons. Sanjay, in particular, has benefited from his fearless approach and the freedom he has been given considering his ball striking ability at the Unicorns. We have given him the same freedom and he has excelled at the international stage too."
The rise of Sai and Sanjay has been complemented by the consistency of the experienced campaigners. Milind Kumar, in particular, has enjoyed a phenomenal run in ODI cricket, amassing 1,214 runs in the current League 2 cycle at an average of 63.89, with four centuries. His ability to construct lengthy innings and accelerate when required has made him indispensable to a batting order increasingly capable of chasing imposing totals.
Around them, seasoned players including Saurabh Netravalkar, Harmeet Singh and Noshtush Kenjige have supplied the experience and bowling discipline essential to sustained success in a competition where one poor spell or one ill-judged passage of play can have far-reaching consequences.
The transformation has not been without its setbacks, nor has it spared the captain himself. The fluctuations in Monank's personal form unfolded against the wider responsibilities of captaining a side that had spent much of the preceding two years navigating upheaval away from cricket. That he should produce a match-winning hundred to seal the League 2 title offered a particularly satisfying conclusion to the team's pursuit of the crown.
Against Namibia, with USA chasing 299, Monank's 108 off 100 balls provided the foundation of a successful pursuit. Supported by contributions from Smit Patel and Shehan Jayasuriya, USA completed the chase with seven balls remaining, securing a four-wicket victory and establishing an unassailable advantage at the top of the League 2 standings.
"Over the last 2-3 years I failed to convert 50s into hundreds. I got around nine 50s in the WCL 2 where I could have easily converted into hundreds. It happens as a captain I was dealing with a lot of distractions from outside, where I had to deal with a lot of stuff that goes around in American cricket and a lot of other things where I had to put in my effort and time to fix those things. This is not an excuse, but I personally felt that it disturbed my game. I wasn't able to focus. If you see my last seven to eight innings, I was getting out as soon as I got set, like around between 20 to 30 runs. But this series, I actually wanted to make sure that I play as a batter when I go to bat, and when I'm going to field or bowl, I am as a captain, so that difference of mentality and mindset actually helped me. And the biggest help and advice I actually got was from my wife to be more disciplined and get into the track where where actually I am focusing more as a batter, rather than as a captain of the field," said Monank.
Monank's admission offered a telling insight into the personal toll of American cricket's dysfunction, even on a captain whose side had managed to rise above it. But USA's triumph should not be mistaken for evidence that those problems have ceased to matter. If anything, the title raises uncomfortable questions about how much further American cricket’s golden generation might have progressed had the national team enjoyed a stable administration, adequate preparation, reliable resources and a regular programme of bilateral fixtures.
USA have now secured another opportunity to contest the 2027 World Cup Qualifiers, where the quality of opposition and the stakes will rise considerably. Having experienced the disappointment of Zimbabwe firsthand, Monank and several of his senior teammates know that winning League 2, however significant, is not the ultimate objective.
"Half of the boys hadn't played in Zimbabwe before arriving for the Qualifiers in 2023. So we want to make sure this time, we get used to the conditions in South Africa because I guess that is where the Qualifiers will be staged this time around. We get enough time to prepare ourselves rather than preparing at home. We want to make sure that we go there early, prepare there. We want to play a few bilateral games against full member countries, where we get used to playing the difference between associate and full member countries. We don't want to go straight away and and play in the qualifiers. We want to identify our players and make sure that the next three months we are as productive as possible."
When Monank walked off the field against Canada in August 2024, his unbeaten hundred had given USA a winning start to another long qualification campaign. When he walked off against Namibia 26 months later, another century had made them League 2 champions. The scorecards will preserve those two innings for posterity. They will tell precious little of everything that happened between them.
And as the ICC's quarterly meetings loom, with the future of the ODI format increasingly uncertain amid the game's changing priorities, there is no guarantee that League 2 will survive in its present form beyond this cycle. If this indeed proves to be the final iteration of a uniquely gruelling competition, USA's triumph would make for a fitting conclusion to a tournament that demanded so much of its participants. For a side that endured almost everything American cricket could throw at it and still emerged on top, it would be difficult to imagine a more remarkable farewell. Quite possibly, one of the biggest sporting coups of the year.
