Though Freedom fans waved red flags with glee every time Andries Gous & Steve Smith hit a six into the crowd during a record-setting chase, there were a host of other red flags visible at Oakland Coliseum on night one of the 2026 MLC Playoffs. 

Photo credit: Peter Della Penna

By Peter Della Penna (Twitter/X @PeterDellaPenna)
 
For those who love turbocharged batting, opening night of the 2026 MLC Playoffs at Oakland Coliseum was one of the great nights in American cricket history and will be remembered that way for all who were present, which to be precise was a tally of 2,500 fans – quoted by one league official – at a stadium venue which can hold more than 52,000. 
 
It’s harder to find a more frustrating measurable to sum up the contrast between the ecstasy of the on-field product for MLC – which has maintained a reputation of attracting some of the sport’s most high-profile names in their cricketing prime during the first four years of the league, and as such has led to numerous record-setting batting displays as was the case once again on Wednesday – versus the agony that is the eyesore of constantly dwindling support through the turnstiles. The fans are voting with their feet, but unlike traditional polling stations, the numbers can’t be inflated with mail-in ballots after the match ends.

Wednesday's playoff doubleheader crowd figure was less than half of the smallest turnout for a Unicorns matchday at Oakland Coliseum in 2025, when Finn Allen's chart-busting 151 was played in front of an opening night crowd of 5,126. By the first weekend at the Coliseum in 2025, the crowds climbed as high as 7,361. For those paying attention throughout this season, a 50% drop-off in attendance has not been an anomaly regardless of the match featuring a home team rather than two neutral sides. It was hoped that things would change for the playoffs, but Wednesday's turnout said otherwise. 
 
Colin Munro, Andre Russell, Rovman Powell, Matthew Short, Sanjay Krishnamurthi, Quinton de Kock, Kieron Pollard, Nicholas Pooran, Steve Smith and Andries Gous all did their best to one-up each other in a testosterone-fuelled, six-hitting derby on the field across both matches of the playoff doubleheader reminiscent of the 1980s Bash Brothers era of the World Series-winning Oakland A's featuring Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. But off the field, a habitually impotent demonstration of box office ticket sales meant that the crowd atmosphere at Oakland Coliseum was decidedly low T.  
 
Winding down on year four of the latest American professional franchise T20 cricket experiment has presented a rehash of a timeless philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Pooran reprised his MLC 2023 tournament final century magic to pulverize his way to not just the fastest half-century in MLC history (off 14 balls, going one better than Powell who had set the mark at 15 balls for LA Knight Riders a few hours earlier) but the fastest century too after he took 31 balls to reach triple-figures. But by the end of the night, Pooran’s century was a footnote left in the wake of the 241-run partnership between Smith and Gous during which both brought up their own centuries on the way to completing a record chase and the highest total in MLC history, 270 (that too off of just 18.4 overs). 
 
At one point in the 16^th over of the Freedom chase, a teenage fan wearing an Argentina football Albiceleste jersey in section 123 could be heard shouting, “Take the single, Smith!” Such was the fervor for the fury of Gous, and who could blame that fan for saying so. Gous had just completed a breathtaking Secretariat-esque sprint in which he blasted the final nine of his 12 sixes to move from 55 to 120 during a 20-ball sequence in which he and Smith combined for 88 runs (out of which Smith scored 20). In the process, Gous became the first American player to score a century in MLC (it had been done 18 times prior by overseas players) and had some fans clamoring for him to keep the strike even though Aussie legend Smith was on 97 and one shot away from a milestone of his own. The shift in momentum was so seismic that Cricinfo’s win predictor went from pegging MINY at 83.41% to putting Freedom as 95.84% favorites having turned the required equation from 123 runs needed off 48 balls to 35 needed off 28. 
 
Of course, for those paying attention, the first domino to fall in that sequence was a dropped chance by substitute fielder Nosh Kenjige when Smith was on 77. It was the third time he’d been put down in the space of three overs (the first time on 67) to go along with a sharp drop off Gous when he was on 47. A few balls later, MINY could have run out either Smith or Gous by simply running the ball to the stumps with both men stranded halfway down the wicket. But a mini Three Stooges sketch unfolded instead with a series of comically bad misses at the stumps before a single was officially recorded for Smith. Seeing how the rest of the chase unfolded, MINY weren’t laughing nearly as hard as those watching. 
 
The power hitting was brilliant. But the MINY drops were bumbling. Yet there were a series of organizational fumbles off the field that were hard to ignore. 
 
In no particular order, let’s start with the merchandise store. Of the four playoff teams, Freedom were the only franchise not offering a single item for sale in the official MLC store at Oakland Coliseum. Gous’ century was a landmark moment, the kind that produces impulse buys galore in any big four pro sports venue in America. What kid wouldn’t pressure their parent into buying an Andries Gous jersey or replica t-shirt on the way out of the stadium after seeing what he did to the MINY bowling attack? Too bad, you couldn’t buy one if you wanted to. Not because they were sold out, but because they were never being sold in the first place. 
 
But Freedom were not the only guilty party. LAKR’s stock was limited to a double XL and a triple XL jersey. MINY’s offerings were similarly confined to jerseys only. Unicorns had the most plentiful merchandise stock of the four remaining teams, which is not altogether surprising considering Oakland Coliseum is their home venue. Unlike in 2025 when they seemed woefully underprepared, Unicorns have put in a much better effort at fan engagement in 2026 and that is evident in the wide variety of items to choose from in the store, from kids to adults, t-shirts to jerseys to hats to hooded sweatshirts (which are unsurprisingly their number one seller in the perversely cold summer climate in the Bay Area).
 
Unicorns have also added t-shirt replica jerseys for sale this year. But for some reason they have limited the options to just three players: Finn Allen (fair enough after his record-setting 151 on opening night in 2025), R Ashwin (fair enough after being the first Indian-capped player to play in MLC, even if it wound up being just one game) and Haris Rauf (fair enough after being MLC’s second-highest wicket-taker in 2025). But they were not selling any t-shirt replica shirts of Matthew Short, the team captain and their best player this season. In other big four pro sports, it would be unthinkable to have an on-site team store that does not offer a jersey or replica shirt of the team captain, who often doubles as the best player. 
 
In an American pro cricket league with a shortage of marketable American stars, one of the few who has been a consistent draw over the last several seasons is Krishnamurthi. He made 65 off 47 balls on Wednesday as part of a 151-run partnership with Short (94 not out off 62). But if you were in the mood to impulse buy a shirt in between matches of the doubleheader and were looking for a shirt featuring either the Unicorns captain or the best homegrown American player on their squad, you were out of luck because neither player’s shirt is offered at the team store. 
 
Then there’s the MVPZ trading cards. When asked during game one of the doubleheader if trading cards were available to be bought on site, a staff member said that they were not selling any and that he thought the MVPZ ads in store weren’t for actual physical trading cards but rather for digital NFTs. Clearly, this guy has not watched a single match of MLC in 2026 or else he’d have seen how the broadcast crew has been ramming the MVPZ promos down the throats of viewers several times a match. A group of MVPZ representatives finally appeared between the first and second games of the doubleheader with a box of collectible trading cards for fans to purchase. There was also an accompanying MVPZ ad in store which looked sloppy with the misspelled tagline, “It’s your ltoyalty [sic] card unlocking unforgettable fan experiences”.
 
The fact that the MVPZ crew showed up halfway through the opening doubleheader rather than well before the start of the first match, combined with their amateurish-looking ad, was yet another example of how the MLC merchandise shop has been run since the opening weekend in Texas. Neither Freedom nor Knight Riders had any merchandise on offer to start the season in Grand Prairie, with staff claiming the shipments of stock coming from overseas were held up in customs. Ancillary logistical elements appear to be left to the 11^th hour to be sorted, if they’re sorted at all, which Freedom appear to have not bothered doing this season. It was bad enough on opening weekend in Texas, but looks even worse a month later on the opening night of the playoffs in California. 
 
Moving outside the merchandise shop, the most salient head-scratching operational decision of the day was scheduling the 1 v 2 playoff qualifier for 2:30 pm and placing the 3 v 4 eliminator match at 6:30 pm. The error was compounded by the fact that Unicorns topped the league table. Rather than have the host team play in primetime to give them the best possible chance of drawing a bigger crowd, the Unicorns were playing at 2:30 when only about 200 of the eventual 2,500 fans were in the building. The most plausible explanations for the low turnout in game one is down to fans not being able to get out of work early enough on a weekday, or those who were taking their time coming to the stadium after staying home to watch a thrilling FIFA World Cup semi-final between England and Argentina, which kicked off at 12 pm local time and finished shortly after 2 pm. 
 
Nobody could have predicted that Unicorns would finish top of the table to wind up being in the 1 v 2 slot, and it would have looked improper to flip the match slots just for the sake of the Unicorns to put them in primetime. But a scheduling precedent was set in 2023 when MLC had a doubleheader day for both the Qualifier and Eliminator playoff matches. On that occasion, the 1 v 2 match was set for the evening in Texas while the 3 v 4 match was played in the daytime. Putting the World Cup scheduling clash aside, would it not make sense that the majority of ticket-holders projected to come out just for the evening match would naturally want to see the top two teams in the league instead of teams 3 v 4? MLC certainly thought so in 2023, so it’s unknown why they changed tack for 2026.  
 
There have been no shortage of people who have blamed the FIFA World Cup for eating into MLC’s ability to draw fans in this home summer, and Wednesday was no different. This writer won’t pretend otherwise since I was guilty of arriving to the first match of the day in the 11^th over after staying at my Airbnb to watch the thrilling conclusion of the England v Argentina semi-final. I know I wasn’t the only one who did so after having conversations with numerous fans during the doubleheader who admitted to arriving similarly.  
 
So there’s certainly a case to be made for the influence of the FIFA World Cup. There would also be far more sympathy for that unenviable situation were it not for the fact that MLC has produced a series of own goals – completely independent of anything to do with the FIFA World Cup – to undermine their ability to keep their existing fanbase engaged let alone branch out and create new fans. 
 
Aside from the missteps mentioned above, there has been hardly any visible advertising either in Texas or in Oakland for this year’s MLC. A person had to be blind while driving up and down the 880 to and from Oakland Coliseum in the summer of 2025 to see a litany of roadside digital billboards hawking the Unicorns home matches. There’s no sign of any ads in the same roadside locations along the 880 in 2026. Of my three Uber drivers so far in Oakland, none were aware that a cricket event was happening at the stadium they were taking me to or picking me up from. How many cricket fans are out there in the Bay Area who aren’t able to hear the sound of Gous flaying bowling attacks at the Coliseum simply because they don’t know he’s even there? 
 
But of all the missed opportunities related to Gous on Wednesday, there was one that is looking far more egregious than any committed by MINY. USA Cricket dropped him from their squads after the 2026 T20 World Cup, and sources have stated that both he and Shadley van Schalkwyk were not offered central contracts in the latest batch that were issued in the spring. After falling four runs short of a century caught on the boundary against MINY on Sunday, he made sure not to make the same mistake again on Wednesday. The same can’t be said of USA Cricket, who have left a red-hot Gous out in the cold. 
 
“I don’t know really where I stand with USA Cricket at the moment, but that is what it is,” Gous said in the post-match press conference. “I think I’m very motivated to try and prove myself in the world of T20 cricket. I think I’ve shown very good glimpses of what I’m capable of and what I can do. If USA wants to pick me, they can pick me. If not, then that’s also okay. I’m very much at peace with where I am in my life.” 
 
On the weekend that Christopher Nolan’s interpretation of “The Odyssey” is opening in theaters across the USA, cricket in America continues to meander along through the past decade in ways reminiscent of the mythical Greek warrior’s journey. Only time will tell if the sport is able to make a triumphant return and take pride of place like it was in 1844. But in the current American cricket climate heading into the last few days of MLC 2026, it feels like there’s a much higher probability that those adventurous enough to take a ride on the American cricket ship will wind up spending several more years of false hope marooned on the island of Calypso instead of completing a long-awaited journey back to Ithaca.