Farhaan Behardien signed up by Leicestershire

South African all-rounder Farhaan Behardien has been signed up by Leicestershire as a replacement for Rilee Rossouw in the NatWest T20 Blast. Rossouw was supposed to play for them in place of Umar Akmal, but he got injured while playing for South Africa.

Andrew McDonald, Leicestershire’s Elite Performance Director, said that they were keen to add an overseas player since Umar is leaving for the Caribbean Premier League (CPL). “We were keen to add another overseas player to our roster for when Umar was leaving for the Caribbean Premier League and were happy to have secured Rilee’s services.”

The former Australian also termed the injury to Rossouw as an “Unfortunate” one. “It was a case of bad timing with the injury, so we have moved quickly to secure a quality replacement in Farhaan.”

He said that they were looking for someone who can fit into the slot left open by the Pakistan cricketer Umar Akmal and he believes that Behardien fits the spot. “We were looking for a batsman who can slot straight into Umar’s role and feel that Farhaan ticks all of the boxes for us. We look forward to him joining up with us in due course.”

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The 32-year old had a decent record in the Twenty20 format with 1888 runs from his 118 T20 games. He has a decent strike-rate of 123.56 at an average of 29.04.

Behardien will play his first game of the season against Derbyshire Falcons on July 8.

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