Sydney Thunder are expected to confirm they have snared Shane Watson as the eventual successor to Mike Hussey as their dominant top-order batsman.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
All-rounder Watson, whose unbeaten century at the weekend propelled Rajasthan into the finals of this season's IPL, has played only one Big Bash League match in the past seven years due to a combination of injury and national selection. He is, nevertheless, a pillar of Australia's Twenty20 team as well as Rajasthan's, and in Twenty20 internationals is ranked 16th for batsman and fourth for all-rounders.
The 33-year-old was in Sydney Sixers' squad for the first year of the city-based BBL, and for the past three years been on the books of Brisbane. Watson's only match for the Heat was in December 2012.
At the Thunder he would join a batting line-up that is confirmed to feature Jacques Kallis and will most likely also boast Usman Khawaja, who missed last season's BBL due to injury, and Hussey, who at 40 is expected to play for a third season at the Thunder and retain the captaincy.
Watson would be a prime candidate to take over as captain in the following season, 2016-17, assuming Hussey retired at the end of next summer.
In the IPL Watson's record is comparable to that of David Warner, who is among the world's elite Twenty20 players. Warner's 82 matches have produced 2519 runs at an average of 34.5 and a strike-rate of 139.4, while Watson's 77 have produced 2362 at an average of 36.9 and a strike-rate of 141.1. Watson has also taken 61 wickets at an average of 27.36 while conceding 7.48 runs per over.
BBL teams' interest in Watson was increased by national selectors' decision to drop him from the one-day team, for the first time in seven years, during the World Cup, because of the greater possibility of him being available to play for much of the BBL season in 2015-16 and beyond. Even though that likelihood has diminished — Watson returned after one match and played pivotal innings against Sri Lanka and Pakistan — the Thunder's strong interest in him has remained.
The Thunder have only disclosed eight players for next season. Six of them — Kallis, Aiden Blizzard, Pat Cummins, Gurinder Sandhu, Jake Doran and Chris Hartley — are continuing their tenure with the ANZ Stadium-based team, while since the end of last season they have signed two from Melbourne Renegades: Ben Rohrer and Fawad Ahmed. They are also expected to boast Clint Mckay, who played for Melbourne Stars for the first four years of the BBL.
