Los Angeles Knight Riders (LAKR) confirmed their final squad for the 2025 edition of the Major League Cricket (MLC), set to kick off on June 12 in California with six new overseas signings. LA Knight Riders imported a couple of players from their satellite franchise, Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL - Rovman Powell and Anrich Nortje. Sherfane Rutherford, who represented the San Francisco Unicorns until last year, has moved a little south of California now to LA, having been associated with the Knight Riders in the championship-winning season in the IPL.
While Sunil Narine and Andre Russell continue to be the faces of the Knight Riders franchises around the world, joining them in the overseas roster were Jason Holder, another Caribbean all-rounder in the mix, the wicketkeeper batter Andre Fletcher, opening batter Alex Hales and Australian leggie Tanveer Sangha.
LAKR had retained a few experienced domestic players in Ali Khan, Nitish Kumar, Unmukt Chand, Shadley van Schalkwyk and Karthik Gattepalli and will hope that the team can find a winning combination with the quality new additions.
The Knight Riders haven't had the best of times in MLC thus far in the two seasons, finishing at the bottom in the inaugural season in 2023, followed by a penultimate 5th place finish in 2024 in a six-team tournament. With the teams set to increase in the forthcoming seasons, LAKR will be keen to qualify for the playoffs this time around with a better set of overseas starcast to compliment the locals.
LAKR get their campaign off the ground in the local CA derby against the Unicorns at the Oakland Coliseum on June 14.
LA Knight Riders squad for MLC 2025: Adithya Ganesh, Ali Khan, Alex Hales, Anrich Nortje, Andre Fletcher, Andre Russell, Corne Dry, Jason Holder, Karthik Gattepalli, Matthew Tromp, Nitish Kumar, Rovman Powell, Saif Badar, Sherfane Rutherford, Shadley van Schalkwyk, Sunil Narine, Tanveer Sangha, Unmukt Chand