MLC Off-Season: Seattle Gets Serious With New Head Coach

The Seattle Orcas mean business, but they haven’t spent much time on the business end of Major League Cricket the last two years.

Arguably MLC’s most visible team, or at least the team putting in the most legwork in their home market, they were also one of MLC’s worst squads in 2025 and made a mid-season coaching and captaincy change after a failure to launch under Matthew Mott and Heinrich Klaasen. That change sparked some life out of the team, and their late surge was backed by some Herculean lifts from Shimron Hetmyer, but it was ultimately too little, too late for the 2023 runners-up, and the focus shifted to 2026 and rebuilding the leadership (and possibly overall) nucleus of the squad.

They certainly got that off to a good start this week.

Two weeks after Adam Voges announced he was leaving Western Australia at the end of the 2025-26 domestic season, Seattle announced the veteran coach as the Orcas’ bench boss in 2026.

Voges’ CV is quite stout: an exceptional test player who waited a long, long time for his test debut whose average is second only to Don Bradman among players with 20+ tests and with a boatload of trophies to his name as both captain and coach. He as won the Big Bash League with Perth three times as captain and three times as head coach, meaning he has a ring in a whopping 43% of the league’s championships to date. He also has three Sheffield Shields and four One Day Cups to his name in charge of Western Australia. Voges may remain as the head coach of the Scorchers beyond the end of the domestic season, but he will be in bright green in six months. He is considered a contender to lead a different kind of green - the baggy kind - at the end of 2027 when Andrew McDonald plans to step away from coaching Australia.

That the Orcas got Voges given his track record and career trajectory is a win in and of itself. They are hardly the only franchise around the world competing for his services. His championship pedigree as both player and coach speaks for itself and is more relevant to what the team is trying to achieve than Matthew Mott’s background being heavy on national teams and the associated continuity. Franchise cricket is hard; teams spend 11 months trying to get the roster right for 30 days of nonstop competition during which major in-season adjustments are virtually impossible. The lessons of that are fresh for Seattle after 2025, and they wanted someone who can get a team through that grind with confidence and a sense of direction.

That last word is crucial - direction. Some MLC teams have it, and some very clearly do not. Seattle is a team that clearly wants to go somewhere. The fact that they have gone backwards since making the 2023 final bothers them, and that’s a good thing. They have talked big talk about wanting to be “America’s Team” in this sport, but nobody takes that talk seriously when the trophy case is empty. Voges is the start, not the end, of an overhaul to build a contender. They were visible at the MiLC Super Eights evaluating potential domestic additions, and a BBL-winning coach will get the attention of international pickups that may be in the front office’s crosshairs, including for the captaincy pending Sikandar Raza’s return. There’s a certain wicketkeeper who knows Voges pretty well, for starters…

Big news has come down the pipe the last few weeks as the trade window wrapped up for IPL teams looking to make roster tweaks. Andre Russell was released by Kolkata and called an end to his IPL career to join the Knight Riders’ coaching staff. Maxwell bowed out of the IPL auction after a disappointing last two seasons in India, and Faf du Plessis is headed to Pakistan instead.

Russell is the least surprising of the three. He was clearly headed toward the dreaded post-prime cliff, and it was time to move on. Maxwell had been woeful with RCB in 2024 and with Punjab in 2025. Maxi’s MLC campaign also ended with a whimper; after a promising start in Oakland and a brisk 42 from 23 against LA at Grand Prairie on June 26, Maxwell scored just 25 runs for the remainder of the competition which mitigated some pretty good bowling in Lauderhill (6/41!). Don’t get me started on the grand final, either.

Faf is definitely the biggest surprise, but even that isn’t that shocking. His numbers last season with Delhi weren’t astonishing, and he may have gotten wind of a difference of opinion in auction price. In any event, Faf may not be an IPL player anymore, but he’s clearly taking care of himself and has plenty left in the tank for a fourth round in MLC before he turns 41 after two electric campaigns the last two seasons.

Cricinfo reports that a whopping 45 players have set the maximum reserve price for themselves in the auction at 2 crore rupees (a little less than $220,000), including Naveen-ul-Haq, Cooper Connolly, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Steve Smith, Finn Allen, Michael Bracewell, Adam Milne, Rachin Ravindra, Gerald Coetzee, Jason Holder, and Akeal Hosein. Over 1300 players submitted their names for auction, and the teams will each compile request lists from which the final pool of players up for bid will be created by the BCCI. Clubs will submit their shortlists on Friday, and the auction takes place in Abu Dhabi on December 16.

The Women’s Premier League player auction was held last week, and lefty Tara Norris was picked up by the UP Warriorz. Norris has been on the India franchise circuit before: she took a five’fer for the Delhi Capitals against RCB in March 2023. The Philadelphian didn’t get much playing time with London in the Women’s Hundred this year but took 2/21 in five overs, which is efficient. Her numbers with Lancashire were much more robust and depict a player approaching or in her prime.

Unfortunately, selection for the WPL conflicts directly with the Women’s T20 World Cup qualifier in Nepal, where the United States has been drawn into a daunting group featuring Ireland, Scotland, and Thailand as favorites to advance. That makes Norris unlikely to represent the United States this winter, denying Anika Kolan a major asset in her bowling attack. This development is as unfortunate as it is understandable given the extreme lack of match opportunities every women’s player has gotten in the US over the [checks notes] entire history of the sport.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get back to gouging my eyes out with a cocktail fork watching the West Indies fumble the bag in New Zealand. Again.