League champions LA Knight Riders headline the MLC 2026 Team of the Tournament with four players making the cut while runner-up side Freedom take three more spots in this year's Best XI, including MLC top scorer Andries Gous.  

Photo credit: Peter Della Penna

By Peter Della Penna (Twitter/X @PeterDellaPenna)
 
1: Mitchell Owen (Freedom) – The 24-year-old pace bowling allrounder has continued to be a prolific contributor with both bat and ball in MLC. This year he broke Finn Allen’s record for the highest score in MLC history, making 155 off 68 balls with 11 fours and 13 sixes in a win over MI New York during the opening week of the season in Dallas. He finished fifth overall with 427 runs at an average of 32.84, an MLC best strike rate of 197.68, and two half-centuries in addition to his century. His 33 sixes were tied for second in the league. With the ball, he also contributed 12 wickets including a best of 3 for 19. 
 
2: Lhuan-dre Pretorius (Unicorns) – The 20-year-old left-handed opener is still early in his international career but has quickly become a big-hitting sensation and that was no different in his first year playing MLC. He started off the season scorching hot, with four half-centuries in his first five innings. His bat cooled off on difficult batting wickets in Pomona before roaring back to life during the return to Grand Prairie when he made an unbeaten 102 off 52 balls against MINY. He wound up finishing third overall with 465 runs at 46.50 and a strike rate of 176.13. 
 
3: Matthew Short (Unicorns, captain) – Had Unicorns been able to beat Freedom in their de facto semi-final clash, Short probably would have been the Player of the Tournament. He had been a menace with his offspin, especially in the Powerplay, throughout the season and claimed 17 wickets across 30 overs at an average of 13.11 and an economy of 7.43. Though he was a steady contributor with the bat throughout the season, he saved his best for last in the playoffs. He made 94 not out off 62 balls in the 1 v 2 Qualifier against LA Knight Riders, and then a valiant 121 not out off 56 balls against Freedom in the Qualifier. However, his team came up short by seven runs on both occasions. He finished second overall in runs with 513 at an average of 64.12 and a strike rate of 146.15, leading MLC with 43 fours. 
 
4: Andries Gous (Freedom, wk) – The Bart King Award winner for best domestic player in MLC 2026, Gous set an MLC record with 547 runs at an average of 45.58 and a strike rate of 165.25. He led MLC with 38 sixes, five clear of both his teammate Owen and MINY’s Nicholas Pooran. The most amazing part of all of his is that 62% of his runs on the season came in his team’s last four matches, three of which were in the playoffs. In the last match of the regular season against MINY, he was caught on the boundary just four short of becoming the first USA national team player to make a century in MLC. Against the same opponent three days later at Oakland Coliseum on the opening day of the playoffs, he didn’t waste another crack at history and made 132 off 51 balls with 10 fours and 12 sixes to eliminate MINY. He then claimed his third Match MVP award in a row for his 73 off 40 in the semi-final Eliminator win over Unicorns before another 40 in the final loss to LAKR. Behind the stumps, Gous finished seven dismissals, tied for second in the league behind Quinton de Kock of MINY.
  
5: Matthew Tromp (LAKR) – The MLC U-23 Domestic Player of the Year award winner was a key driver of the Knight Riders second-half resurgence in 2026 and helped them not only make the playoffs for the first time, but emerge as 2026 MLC champions. In the final four matches of the regular season, Tromp made scores of 44, 50, 49 and 58 not out as his own hot streak helped the team win three of their last four matches, which was good enough to clinch a top-two spot. In the tournament final, his invaluable 39 off 21 balls was vital to propping up the innings after the middle-order went cold following the Andre Fletcher-Colin Munro opening stand. He ended with 309 runs at an average of 34.33 and a strike rate of 155.27 with 20 sixes to finish second behind only Gous in the domestic scoring list. 
 
6: Rovman Powell (LAKR) – The Jamaican power-hitter’s raw stats might not seem very glamourous: 269 runs in 12 innings at an average of 24.45. But anyone paying attention to MLC in 2026 knows he played arguably two of the most impressive innings of the season from his spot in the middle order, walking away with Match MVP honors both times, to help LAKR to the title. The first one came in Pomona on a wicket where almost everyone struggled to make runs. Entering in the 11^th over at 59 for 3 with his team needing another 115 off the final nine overs, he scored 73 off 27 balls with six fours and six sixes as Powell turned a seemingly insurmountable equation into an LAKR win with eight balls to spare. Then in the 1 v 2 Qualifier Playoff against Unicorns, Powell blitzed the Unicorns death bowling unit for 50 not out off 15 balls, including four in the 19^th over off Haris Rauf, to record the fastest fifty in MLC history. By comparison, Andre Russell and Colin Munro needed 41 and 42 balls respectively to reach their fifties in the same innings.
 
7: Sunil Narine (LAKR) – The MLC Player of the Tournament and Final MVP showed why he’s a T20 legend while serving as the key driver in LAKR’s turnaround from last place in 2025 to tournament champions in 2026. His 18 wickets tied for the tournament lead with two others – Orcas paceman Ottneil Baartman and teammate Andre Russell – but his economy rate of 4.74 was positively absurd. Finn Allen technically had the best economy rate in MLC 2026, but he only bowled four overs compared to Narine’s 43. Among bowlers who bowled at least one over per team game, Narine’s mark was comfortably best in the league, way ahead of MINY’s Corbin Bosch who had a 6.23 economy in 26 overs. Narine’s 3 for 13 in the tournament final put the Freedom in a hole in the Powerplay that they were constantly trying to dig out of for the rest of the chase.
 
8: Shadley van Schalkwyk (LAKR) – After being a somewhat hidden player in the Knight Riders squad for the first three seasons in the league, van Schalkwyk stepped up to be a central figure in the bowling unit in their title-winning run in 2026. Though he never had what could be classed as a match-winning performance – his best was 3 for 17 where he was generously named Match MVP in a lopsided 81-run win over Orcas in the opening week of the season where the best first innings score by LAKR was 40 from Andre Fletcher – he had some match-turning ones and his final over against Freedom served as a match-clinching one in the championship where he took two wickets and had the final-ball runout to deny a Super Over. Van Schalkwyk ended tied for fifth overall with 16 wickets at an average of 25.56 and a 9.47 economy.
 
9: Jessy Singh (Orcas) – The 33-year-old was a bright spot on a bad Orcas unit. He tied for fifth overall in wickets with 16 at an average of 20.81 and an economy rate of 8.76 across 38 overs. He was also one of only two players in the league to take a five-wicket haul in 2026, doing so against eventual tournament runner-up Freedom during an 88-run win when the teams met at Oakland Coliseum in the regular season stretch at the venue. On that occasion, Singh took 5 for 24 including the wickets of Steven Smith, Andries Gous, Glenn Maxwell for a golden duck, Jack Edwards and Marco Jansen. The first four of those were all in the Powerplay as Freedom were reduced to 36 for 5 chasing a target of 228 in which they eventually fell well short.
 
10: Ottneil Baartman (Orcas) – Like Singh, Baartman was a standout contributor on an Orcas squad that managed to win just four matches. Baartman ended up tied with Sunil Narine and Andre Russell for the overall MLC lead with 18 wickets and took them at an outstanding average of 13.72 and a 7.48 economy rate. However, Baartman did it in just nine regular season matches and was the league’s top bowler across the league phase whereas Narine and Russell had two more matches in the playoffs to equal him. Impressively, Baartman took at least one wicket in all nine matches, with his best performance coming against Freedom in the opening week at Grand Prairie when he claimed 4 for 33 and the match MVP Award in a five-wicket win. 
 
11: Saurabh Netravalkar (Freedom) – The most consistent domestic bowler across all four seasons of MLC was once again a standout force in the Freedom bowling unit to help them reach the tournament final for the third year in a row. He claimed a match MVP award for Freedom’s six-wicket win over Knight Riders at Pomona when his 3 for 16 across four overs – he wiped out Rovman Powell, Jason Holder and Andre Russell during a crucial middle-overs sequence – helped bowl out LAKR for 108. But far more memorable was his 19^th over in the de facto semi-final against Unicorns where he held Matthew Short and Xavier Bartlett in check to deny the Unicorns a spot in the final. Netravalkar ended the season with 15 wickets at an average of 26.86 and an economy of 9.15. 
 
12th: (overseas) Andre Russell (LAKR) – Russell gets squeezed out of the starting XI due to the 6/5 overseas/domestic rule for the starting XI. But he was yet another positive influence in LAKR’s championship run. Russell tied for the MLC lead along with Narine and Baartman taking 18 wickets, though at a far more expensive average (19.83) and economy rate (9.27) compared to the other two. He also had a half-century in the 1 v 2 playoff match against Unicorns, though his 62 not out off 50 balls was rapidly overshadowed by Rovman Powell’s 50 not out off 15 balls. He ended with 140 runs at an average of 17.50 and a subdued strike rate of 125.00 compared to his reputation. In spite of his performances, he never claimed a match MVP award in 2026. 
 
12th: (domestic) Amshi de Silva (TSK) – The 24-year-old turned heads in his MLC debut season, claiming a Match MVP award for his 4 for 28 in a 22-run win over Unicorns on “Ashwin Night” at Oakland Coliseum. He ended up 12^th overall in MLC with 13 wickets, one less than fellow domestic category player Brody Couch, but had a more impressive average and economy rate than Couch by taking his wickets at an average of 23.53 and an economy rate of 8.70. De Silva gets the nod over TSK teammate Sai Mukkamalla, who finished 15^thoverall and a distant third in the domestic scoring list behind Matthew Tromp and Gous with a total of 266 runs at an average of 26.60 and a strike rate of 127.27.