Australia's Adam Zampa, Aaron Finch and Marcus Stoinis are among the international stars putting a new spin on cricket in the USA as the nation's first Twenty20 tournament gets under way.
The trio have signed up to play their part in the inaugural season of Major League Cricket (MLC), which begins in Texas on July 13 (July 14 AEST).
Zampa will line up for the Los Angeles Knight Riders, while Finch, Stoinis and Matthew Wade will take the field for the San Francisco Unicorns.
Other Australians heading Stateside include Moises Henriques and Josh Philippe (both Washington Freedom), and Jason Behrendorff (MI New York).
Cricket Victoria and Cricket NSW will act as 'high-performance partners' for two of the sides - respectively the Unicorns and the Freedom.
The MLC will comprise six teams - from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas, New York and Washington - who will play 18 matches before the first final on July 30.
Teams will combine international stars and homegrown players selected through a draft undertaken when the league was launched, officially and metaphorically, at the Space Centre in Houston.
Each team was allowed to sign nine local players, one of whom had to be younger than 23.
The salaries of international players will be drawn from an initial $US120 million ($A180m) investment from corporate backers, mainly from India.
Most matches will be played at the Grand Prairie Stadium near Dallas, converted to a cricket arena with 7200 seats and a grass pitch, with others taking place at Church Street Park in Morrisville, North Carolina.
Major League Cricket hopes to bask in some reflected glitz from the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Four of the six teams are owned by IPL franchises.
The LA Knight Riders will be run under the same umbrella as the Kolkata Knight Riders.
MI New York will be run by the Mumbai Indians, while the Texas Super Kings and the Seattle Orcas by the GMR Group which owns the Delhi Capitals.
Zampa's Knight Riders, co-owned by Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, have also recruited West Indies stars Sunil Narine and Andre Russell, England’s Jason Roy, Rilee Rossouw of South Africa, and New Zealanders Lockie Ferguson and Martin Guptill.
“We have assembled a strong and talented team for the debut season of MLC who can compete at the highest level and bring joy to cricket fans around the world,” CEO Venky Mysore said.
The Texas Super Kings have hired South Africa’s Faf du Plessis as captain alongside international stars Ambati Rayudu, Devon Conway, Mitchell Santner, Dwayne Bravo, David Miller, Australian Daniel Sams and Gerald Coetzee.
West Indies and Mumbai Indians star Kieron Pollard will captain New York, whose other signings include fast bowlers Trent Boult from New Zealand and Kagiso Rabada from South Africa.
- with AP
