David Willey will play for Rangpur Riders in BPL 5

The Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) is just around the corner, and each of the franchises is gearing up for the mega event. The latest signing for the tournament is 27-year-old England pacer David Willey and he will turn up for the Bashundhara Group owned Rangpur Riders team in the fifth edition of the BPL.

Willey will share the dressing room with some big names- Chris Gayle, Samuel Badree, Ravi Bopara, Thisara Perera apart from their icon player Mashrafe Mortaza. The left-handed batsman scored a gritty 40 for Yorkshire, playing against Northants yesterday in the NatWest T20 blast, and the Riders will hope that the all-rounder comes good during the BPL.

Rangpur’s coach Tom Moody might well have played a part to rope in Willey. Moody was the coach for Sunrisers Hyderabad during the IPL and they had signed up the England pacer; his rapport with Willey has been pretty healthy. The 27-year-old’s Yorkshire team-mate Liam Plunkett is also interested in taking part in the BPL as per reports, but nothing has been finalized as of yet. Rangpur announced their deal with Willey on their official Facebook page also mentioning that if any all-rounder is to be named as the icon player then it will be Willey.

Impressive record

Willey has played 28 ODIs so far for England and has scalped 33 wickets at an average of 34.78. He has also scored 126 runs for the ‘Three Lions” with the bat. In 15 T20Is, the all-rounder has picked up 20 wickets at an average of 21.40. Talking about First class cricket, the Northampton born all-rounder has registered 2137 runs at an average of 27.05. He has 2 centuries and 14fifties to his name. With the ball, the Englishman has picked 161 wickets at an average of 30.32.

His T20 record is also quite impressive, Willey has piled up 1925 runs from 136 games at an average of 24.36. He has 2 hundred and six fifties to show for.  In the same number of games, Willey has picked 132 wickets, turning out to be a handy all-rounder.