Active Indian male cricketers are typically not allowed to participate in T20 leagues outside India. Agni Dev Chopra, who played domestic cricket till January 2025, however, has been playing in the Major League Cricket in the USA.
Who is Agni Dev Chopra?
In the winter of 2023/24, Chopra had broken into the Indian domestic circuit resoundingly by becoming the first cricketer to score a hundred in each of his first four first-class matches. His career tally stands at nine tons in 11 games, while his 1,804 runs have come at an astonishing average of 954.94.
Chopra has played in the 2023/24 and 2024/25 seasons, not only in the Ranji Trophy but also in the Vijay Hazare and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophies. To sum up, he played Indian domestic cricket for Mizoram as recently as early 2025. On February 1, 2025, he won the BCCI award for scoring the most runs in the Ranji Trophy Plate Group.
MI New York then signed him up for the 2025 edition of the Major League Cricket. On June 13, he fell for five against the Texas Super Kings at Oakland. All that raises a question: how was he allowed to play in the MLC when Indian male cricketers are not allowed to participate in overseas T20 leagues?
How is Chopra playing in the MLC?
Indeed, Yuvraj Singh, no less, had to retire from Indian cricket (including the IPL) to obtain an NOC to play for the Toronto Nationals in the Global T20 in Canada in 2019. There was also the case of Unmukt Chand, captain of the Indian side that won the Under-19 World Cup in 2012: retiring from Indian cricket allowed him to play in the BBL in 2021/22, the BPL in 2023, and the MLC in 2024. The list is long.
Unlike them, however, the Detroit-born Chopra does not hold an Indian passport. “I would have still applied for an Indian passport and stayed if I had been picked in the Indian Premier League but [I am] looking forward to my time in America now,” he told The Times of India.
In 2024, the BCCI had mandated that a cricketer needed an Indian passport to be eligible to play domestic cricket in India. Overseas cricketers (even entire teams, such as those in the Duleep Trophy) had previously played domestic cricket in India, but they will no longer be allowed to do so.
Since Chopra is ineligible to play in Indian domestic cricket anymore, he did not face problems in signing up for the MLC. If he plays in the IPL, it will have to be as an overseas player. All that, however, will change if he opts for an Indian passport (his parents live in Mumbai).
