The fourth edition of the International League T20 will kick off in Dubai on Tuesday, December 2, with the defending champions Dubai Capitals taking on the Desert Vipers in a repeat of last year's final. With the tournament moving to the early December window, the player availability has improved.

The fourth edition of the International League T20 will kick off in Dubai on Tuesday, December 2 with the defending champions, Dubai Capitals, taking on the Desert Vipers in a repeat of last year's final. It's been less than 10 months and the tournament is back because of T20 World Cup is being scheduled in the February window. After the first-ever auction, the squads have changed a fair bit, but it has also improved with no other league clashing with it for the moment.

There is familiarity to most of the teams, since they were able to retain five to seven of their core players.  The Pollards and the Poorans will be back in blue, while Tim Southee and Lockie Ferguson will be back leading the Sharjah Warriorz and Desert Vipers, respectively. Dasun Shanaka, Gulbadin Naib and Rovman Powell will be back in the hot seat for the Capitals, while James Vince will be back leading the inaugural champions Gulf Giants. With the IPL auction imminent, a few players like Naveen ul Haq, Jonny Bairstow, Tom Banton, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Liam Livingstone and Jason Holder among others will have an oppotunity to attract the potential buyers.

From the Indian standpoint, Dinesh Karthik and Piyush Chawla will be the two capped Indian players taking part in the competition, while Unmukt Chand, the former Indian U19 World Cup-winning captain and now an American cricketer, will also be representing the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders alongside the veteran leggie. With several players set to leave for the Big Bash League and SA20 later on, the teams have already prepared for the contingencies and it will be interesting to see which team can survive the best and longest.

The fourth edition of the International League T20 will kick off in Dubai on Tuesday, December 2 at 8 PM IST (6:30 PM local). On double header days, the matches will begin at 3:30 PM IST (2 PM local). All 34 games will be live-streamed on the Fancode app and website, as well as on Zee5. Numerous Zee Network channels, including Zee Cinema, & Pictures, & Flix and other language-specific channels, will broadcast the ILT20 live on TV in India.

Squads
Abu Dhabi Knight Riders

Jason Holder (c), Andre Russell, Alishan Sharafu, Charith Asalanka, Phil Salt, Sunil Narine, Alex Hales, Liam Livingstone, Sherfane Rutherford, Usman Tariq, Michael Pepper, George Garton, Brandon McMullen, Ibrar Ahmed, Ajay Kumar, Adnan Idrees Muhammad, Abdul Manan Ali, Mayank Chowdary, Khary Pierre, Shadley Van Schalkwyk, Unmukt Chand

Gulf Giants

Aayan Afzal Khan, Gerhard Erasmus, Mark Adair, James Vince, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Moeen Ali, Kyle Mayers, Matthew Forde, Asif Khan, Zuhaib Zubair, Sean Dickson, Tabraiz Shamsi, Liam Dawson, Fred Klaassen, Haider Razzaq, Meet Bhavsar, Ishtiaq Ahmad, Lorcan Tucker, Chris Wood, Tom Moores, Nuwan Thushara, Pathum Nissanka