Hampshire has signed Indian batsman Ajinkya Rahane and following the visa clearance, the 30-year-old will join his new teammates for the middle part of the English season.
Rahane, who currently plays for team Rajasthan in the ongoing Indian T20 League, will travel to England soon after his current stint and will feature in as many as eight County Championship games from mid-May to July, thus become the first Indian to have ever played for Hampshire.
"I am excited to be the first Indian to play for Hampshire, a county which has a glowing reputation," Rahane said. "I hope to score runs and win as a team and would like to thank BCCI for allowing me to play."
Rahane will join his new team as a replacement of Aiden Markram, who is set to end his current stint to join South Africa for the ICC Cricket World Cup. The South African himself was a replacement of Sri Lanka’s Dimuth Karunaratne, who pulled out owing to his international commitment.
"We're delighted to attract a player of Ajinkya's class and with both Aiden and Dimuth selected for the World Cup, we were obviously in the market for a top-order batsman," Giles White, Hampshire's Director of Cricket, said.
"Ajinkya showed an interest early on and the way things have played out it's a great opportunity to get him over - we're really excited to have him with us. He's enjoyed playing at the Ageas Bowl previously and it's going to be great to have a player of his stature joining the dressing room."
Rahane, who has no experience of County Cricket, ironically has a good record at the Hampshire’s home ground – The Ageas Bowl. Playing four Test innings at the venue, he has scored three half-centuries. On a global scale, the 30-year-old has played 56 Tests and has scored 3488 runs at 40.55.
