Pitch Report | Danny Morrison: Longer boundaries down the ground and to the off side. It is a good looking cricket pitch with a good green tinge. There has been a bit of swing with the clouds,

Sunil Narine: Looks good. We would have bowled first too, but will try to put a good total now. All the boys are ready and pumped for the first game. We have a balanced team, you never know what will happen.

Faf Du Plessis: We'll bowl because of the rain, plenty of moisure in the surface. Happy to be back here. The pitch here looks really good. Quite tricky to pick your six overseas players. Mitch Santner is not playing today for us.

Texas Super Kings have won the toss and have opted to field

It's toss time.

Marcus Stoinis: Preparation was good. I would have liked to stay longer at the T20 World Cup. We played one warm-up game and spent a lot of time socialising. I just want to support Faf this season, help him out and the youngsters. There is no better time for cricket in USA. The USA team did well in the World Cup as well, this should be good. After the World Cup, I had 5 days to myself which I spent in New York, and then joined up with the team.

19:12 Local Time, 00:12 GMT, 05:42 IST:

18:37 Local Time, 23:37 GMT, 05:07 IST:

Preview

The LA Knight Riders looked rudderless in the inaugural season of the MLC. Despite a team packed with T20 paragons, a 1-4 win loss record characterised their lacklustre performance on the field. The team went down the doldrums with four defeats in their first four games. What was more disconcerting was the margin of the defeats, including being shot out for 114 and 50 in their first two games.

The quality of domestic batting talent was an all pervasive issue for all the MLC teams in the first season. While some managed to perform in patches, the LAKR domestic batting talent completely flopped. To make matters worse the likes of Martin Guptill and Jason Roy were unable to make a substantial impact at the top of the order. With some bolstering, the line-up looks better on paper this time and they'll be hoping it comes good against a team that damaged them early in the season last year.

The crowd frenzy that surrounded the Texas Super Kings in Dallas invoked a strong feeling of deja vu amongst the Super Kings fans. This unwavering support laid the first bricks to build yet another hollowed fortress 5,000 miles away from their spiritual home in Chennai. TSK kicked off their campaign last year with a thumping home win against a star studded LA Knight Riders. Devon Conway and David Miller chipped in with sparkling half centuries on that day but mostly struggled thereafter to match their opening salvo. Like their opponents, the Super Kings too had many issues to address and to compound their batting woes captain Faf Du Plessis failed to cross 14 runs in any of his 7 innings while Milind Kumar was the lone half-centurion among the domestics.

Matheesha Pathirana's unavailability had Stephen Fleming make an SOS call to Bravo. The 40 year old Super Kings loyalist will partner with Afghanistan's Naveen-ul-Haq to shoulder death over responsibilities for TSK. Du Plessis, who will turn 40 half way into the tournament, will take over the reins for yet another season. Aiden Markram, meanwhile, will have little time to shake off the world cup heartbreak as the South African captain is expected to line up for the opening game on July 5. The tournament also provides an excellent opportunity for Devon Conway and Mitchell Santner to find their form after missing out in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup. Conway would particularly be itching to go after being sidelined from the IPL owing to a fractured thumb. Marcus Stoinis will don the yellow this year after a stint with the San Francisco Unicorns in the inaugural season along with fellow Western Australian, Aaron Hardie.

When: July 06 at 12:30 AM GMT (Jul 06) / 07:30 PM LOCAL, 6:00 AM IST

Where: Grand Prairie Stadium, Dallas

Teams

Los Angeles Knight Riders

Probable XI : Jason Roy, Sunil Narine, Unmukt Chand, Nitish Kumar, David Miller, Andre Russel, Adithya Ganesh/Saif Badar, Corne Dry, Ali Khan, Spencer Johnson, Waqar Salamkheil

Texas Super Kings

Probable XI: Faf Du Plessis, Devon Conway, Milind Kumar, Aiden Markram, Marcus Stoinis, Joshua Tromp, Dwayne Bravo, Cameron Stevenson, Naveen Ul Haq, Mohammad Mohsin, Raj Nannan

Squads:

Los Angeles Knight Riders Squad: Jason Roy, Sunil Narine(c), Unmukt Chand, Shakib Al Hasan, David Miller, Adithya Ganesh(w), Andre Russell, Adam Zampa, Joshua Little, Spencer Johnson, Ali Khan, Waqar Salamkheil, Shadley van Schalkwyk, Nitish Kumar, Derone Davis, Corne Dry, Alex Carey, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Saif Badar, Matthew Tromp

Texas Super Kings Squad: Faf du Plessis(c), Devon Conway(w), Aiden Markram, Marcus Stoinis, Daryl Mitchell, Milind Kumar, Mitchell Santner, Dwayne Bravo, Naveen-ul-Haq, Aaron Hardie, Matheesha Pathirana, Zia-ul-Haq, Calvin Savage, Cameron Stevenson, Mohammad Mohsin, Noor Ahmad, Saiteja Mukkamalla, Zia Shahzad, Raj Nannan, Joshua Tromp