England World Cup winners Jason Roy and Liam Plunkett will be among the pioneers launching Major League Cricket in the United States in the next 48 hours.
And organisers of America's inaugural Twenty20 franchise tournament have warned they want more A-list England stars – including Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow and Harry Brook – to follow suit.
Opener Roy, who cancelled his £70,000 incremental white-ball contract with Lord's to join the MLC circus, features in Friday morning's curtain-raiser for LA Knight Riders against Texas Super Kings at the Prairie Stadium near Dallas.
Former Durham and Yorkshire pace bowler Plunkett, whose wife is American, is expected to play for San Francisco Unicorns in their opener against MI New York 24 hours later.
Four of the six franchises are financially backed by investors in the megabucks Indian Premier League, and bean-counters at the England & Wales Cricket Board will be anxiously monitoring MLC's impact – and whether it could impinge on the domestic calendar in future.
Roy could earn up to £150,000 over the 19-day tournament, while Plunkett – who took 3-42 in the dramatic World Cup final super-over win against New Zealand four years ago – believes the potential for expansion is huge.
He said: “I've been coming over here for a long time, and I didn't even know cricket existed for the first 10 or 11 years. But it's everywhere – every weekend there's cricket going on, with 120 or 130-plus teams in Philly (Philadelphia) alone.
“With IPL owners putting their names behind it, and the amount of money that's going to be behind it, I think it will be successful – but they need to get the best players in and the facilities have to be good.
“There's no point in having a good standard of players if the wickets aren't very good and it's 80 all out or you can't hit the ball into the stand. But we're going to get new fans engaged, in terms of people who were born and bred here, and we want to see the ball going out of the park – even if it's off my bowling.”
MLC co-founder Vijay Srinivasan insists they are chasing top-class talent from around the world. He told the BBC : "American sports fans want to see the best in the world. That's the demand in US professional sports.
"They don't want second-tier talent. They insist on the best. England is fortunate to have some of those with the likes of Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow and Harry Brook."
