Published: 12/03/2010 00:31:40 | Modified: 14/03/2010 12:20:43
Author: Paul Bolton | All Contributors
Sehwag signing a real coup for Northants
Northamptonshire have demonstrated their commitment to improve on their encouraging progress last season by signing Indian batting star Virender Sehwag as their overseas player for the new Friends Provident Twenty20 competition.
Sehwag’s capture represents a major coup for Northamptonshire at a time when recruiting major players from India is becoming more difficult for counties because of the riches that are now available in the Indian Premier League.
Sehwag will again play for the Delhi Daredevils in the IPL but he will link up with Northamptonshire in June for what will be only his second experience of county cricket.
He had a stint with Leicestershire in 2003 but Sehwag was still a rising star at that stage. Now he is one of India’s leading and most explosive batsmen with 76 Tests and 221 one-day internationals to his name. He also made the fastest triple-century in Test history against South Africa in Chennai two years ago.
Northamptonshire reached the Twenty20 Cup finals day for the first time last season and narrowly missed out on promotion in the County Championship and intend to improve further this year.
They are well advanced in negotiations with Zimbabwe all-rounder Elton Chigumbura, a middle-order batsman and seamer, to become their one permitted overseas player for the County Championship and 40-over League.
Chigumbura, currently involved in a one-day series in the West Indies, played six Tests before Zimbabwe’s exile from the five-day form of international cricket.
He has played 106 one-day internationals and eight Twenty20 internationals, having been fast-tracked into the senior side after he took four wickets in Zimbabwe’s sensational victory over Australia in the Under-19 World Cup two winters ago.
Northamptonshire have vacancies in their squad created by a tightening-up of work permit criteria which means that fast bowler Johan van der Wath and batsman Riki Wessels are no longer eligible to play county cricket as Kolpak players.