What the hell are the Super Kings doing?
That question could have easily applied to the Chennai outfit during their sixth straight loss at Chepauk to the might-be-pretty-good-again Punjab Kings, but it was the main reaction to the Texas-based branch of one of cricket's largest faceless conglomerates. While the mothership was watching a decent start to their innings with the ball morph into another good score for Cooper Connolly and a half-century for Shreyas Iyer to anchor a relatively brisk chase in the end, the Texas Super Kings announced their overseas signings for 2026. To their credit, they did it all in one day, over a period of a few hours, leaving no need for speculation about who would be where. The roster is done, they seemed to say, no point standing around.
The social media response to that crew - the only one TSK is really gonna get - was pretty staunchly negative. It was probably shaded by CSK's impending loss as fans stopped blowing their whistles only long enough to declare that TSK was cooked in 2026 weeks before the season started, leaning into the despair of their team's continued struggles as it gets a taste of the looming post-MS Dhoni era. If CSK is Thala & Friends, then TSK is Faf & Friends.
Faf du Plessis unsurprisingly returns to captain Texas in 2026. He will turn 42 around the end of the regular season, and after looking fit as a fiddle for most of MLC 2025 and delivering in a big way for the home crowd in Grand Prairie, his SA20 campaign was less stellar. He was limited and ultimately didn't bat in the playoffs against MI Cape Town due to a thumb injury in the field, marking an unceremonious end to the 2025-26 campaign, the first SA20 where he failed to crack 50 in a game. While he is an unquestioned titan of cricket in the 21st century, this summer in the States could be it.
If this is a last hurrah, Faf will at least be surrounded by familiar faces, including Donovan Ferreira, who had a monster year in 2025 and was a mortal lock to run it back. Adam Milne and Akeal Hossein felt like safe picks to return, although Hossein may be called away for white ball action by the West Indies late in the season. Nandre Burger is also back, hoping for a more consistent run than his 2025 season that was skewed by a 3/10 spell against Seattle.
The new additions are… less exciting. Marcus Stoinis is off to Seattle after three lackluster seasons in yellow, replaced by 36-year-old Rilee Rossouw, who is having a tough time of it in Pakistan. Noor Ahmad gets the summer off between tours of India and Ireland and is replaced by the expensive-but-effective Keshav Maharaj, also 36. To inject another younger player into the side, they've replaced Daryl Mitchell with 28-year-old Wiaan Mulder, who has a deeply underwhelming track record in white ball cricket but did have that unforgettable test innings against Zimbabwe last fall. Faf will also captain his new brother-in-law, pacer Hardus Viljoen. Like Faf, Viljoen did not play the full season, and has in fact never played a full season in SA20. He's 37, which is a dicey time for a fast bowler.
While my own opinion of their 2026 international haul is not that high in an absolute sense, in a relative sense, it’s actually not that bad. Half the group warranted coming back after last year, and I like Mulder as a pure upside play. It's a squad that can be a tough out if the right guys are healthy and motivated and stay that way. If you’re reading this and wondering why there are so many South Africans, blame the Future Tours Program.
June and July in 2026 are packed with international cricket of all three formats. The only teams that aren't scheduled to play during at least some part of MLC's window are South Africa and... well, South Africa, which is wide open until hosting a multi-format series with Australia in late September. It's no surprise, then, that Ryan Rickelton, Marco Jansen, Corbin Bosch, and Faf’s TSK gang lead the international signings announced for MLC 2026 so far, paired with a handful of Australians who may or may not get called into the camp for the rescheduled ODI series with Pakistan, tentatively set for late June after Australia tours Bangladesh. The good news is, a number of talented Proteas remain ostensibly available, including Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Tristan Stubbs, Dewald Brevis, and T20 captain Aiden Markram. The bad news is, that's five guys, and there are 30 international spots left unannounced as of this writing. Rosters are done, so we'll know soon enough, but I would be surprised if TSK's international cohort is the only one striking these notes.
With few exceptions, most of the world’s premier players have appeared in MLC at some point in the last three seasons, from Rabada to Rashid Khan and well beyond. Having a great diversity of stars from all over the world gives MLC a kind of cultural cachet as a destination league for prime players at the top of the game (unless they're Indian, in which case the BCCI makes them stay home or else). It exposes the domestic audience to a high standard of cricket, as well, ensuring the game makes a strong first impression. When the availability of that star power is inevitably compromised in the short-term franchise cricket cycle, going back to the well for fringe national teamers and domestic stalwarts from other countries doesn't carry the same weight.
This is part of why I wanted MLC to go to six or even seven domestics for 2026. The going rate for domestic players on the back end of a roster is $10,000, and Viljoen and Rossouw undoubtedly got much more than that to effectively keep US-based players off the field. Milind Kumar and Mohammad Mohsin are 50/50 to even be in the lineup because of them, particularly Rossouw, but both of them played in the T20 World Cup while the other two are obscure to an American audience at this point in their careers. What has more marketing value?
MLC going beyond the headliners for international talent can work if the league is framed as a “see them before they’re stars” enterprise with a dash of “these are YOUR guys,” which probably could have worked with Ferreira (6 caps before MLC debut), Mitchell Owen (uncapped before MLC debut) and even Cooper Connolly, but the league in general and Texas in particular doesn’t seem to be positioning itself that way, or any way at all. Turning Donovan Ferreira into a cult figure akin to Jaime Moreno, Marco Etcheverry, or Ben Olsen would not be particularly hard and would give new fans a guidepost into both the league and the broader Super Kings network of teams, but it isn’t even on their radar. They’re just grabbing whoever they can and slapping a roster together and hoping for the best.
The more immediate question facing Faf & Friends is, can this team win MLC in 2026? The answer, at least for me, is no; just like last year, they have the bats to be in games, but they don’t have the fast bowlers to make a big score stand up. What this team can do is win a few games while Faf knocks some big scores for the yellow-clad faithful at Grand Prairie with support from Ferreira, Saiteja Mukkamalla, and Shubham Ranjane. They’ll get into the playoffs and maybe win a game while providing content for a fanbase enduring an excruciating rebuild back home.
It won’t be much, but they don’t need much to have a reason to blow those damn whistles.