Chicago Players: A dream comes to Fruition In 2014 Vishal Patel, resident of Mt. Prospect, presented his idea of buying a franchise cricket to his friends while hanging out at a social gathering. The team would recruit or draft the best young players in the Chicagoland area and tour throughout the Americas to play elite tournaments. Cricket is a popular sport in the Chicagoland area and there are more than 200 teams here, but a franchise team was unheard of. The concept of a franchise team was not new , the Indian Premier League ( IPL) works on a similar structure, so does the NFL and MLS here in the states.