CSK announce partnership; Fleming to be Texas Super Kings coach

Former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming will be the coach of Dallas-based Major League Cricket (MLC) club Texas Super Kings (TSK), which announced its partnership with IPL side Chennai Super Kings (CSK).

Four-time IPL champions, CSK had recently said that they would make a "major announcement" with regard to their association with the new T20 tournament in the US.

TSK said in a statement that CSK will bring "operational expertise" and help "Texas compete on the field".

"The (Texas Super kings) team will be led by coach Stephen Fleming. Fleming is a former captain of the New Zealand national cricket team and head coach of Indian Premier League team Chennai Super Kings. He played in the first-ever Twenty20 international to be staged as captain of the New Zealand team in 2005," said a TSK statement.

Fleming is a long-serving CSK head coach and has guided the Chennai franchise to four IPL titles.

CSK join Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians as the third IPL side to get associated with the six-team MLC, scheduled to begin on July 13.

The six MLC teams are San Francisco Unicorns, Lost Angeles, MI New York, Seattle Orcas, Texas Super Kings and Washington DC.

Delhi Capitals, co-owned by GMR Group, are partnering with Seattle Orcas to "help build and operate a world-class cricket team", while Mumbai Indians have joined the US cricket revolution by acquiring the New York franchise.

Meanwhile, all six MLC teams completed the domestic player draft at the Space Center in Houston, where they selected nine players each from more than 100 cricketers eligible to represent the "US cricket community".

The remainder of each team's player roster will be filled with top T20 cricketers from across the world.

"Cricket is the second-most popular sport in the world with a global fan base of around 2.5 billion followers, but there has not been an opportunity for the sport to grow in the US," said Anurag Jain, co-owner of the MLC Texas Super Kings.

"We look forward to having a professional team in Texas for the passionate local cricket community to root for and to introduce the sport to new fans across the country," added Jain.