Leicestershire have signed South African international Farhaan Behardien as a replacement for compatriot Rilee Rossouw, who was due to join them for their NatWest T20 Blast campaign.

Rossouw himself was a replacement for Umar Akmal, but will be unable join the foxes after injuring his shoulder playing for South Africa against Australia in the in the Caribbean.

Behardien, who has now played 45 ODIs and 25 Twenty20 Internationals for his country, has scored 1,888 Twenty20 runs at an average of 29.04 and strike rate of 123.56. In addition he offers an all-round option with his medium pace accounting for 69 wickets in all formats.

He is scheduled to play his first T20 game for the Leicestershire Foxes against Derbyshire Falcons on Friday, 8th July.

Andrew McDonald, Elite Performance Director at Leicestershire, was pleased to confirm this news and said -

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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.Unfortunately it was a case of bad timing with the injury, so we have moved quickly to secure a quality replacement in Farhaan.

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Leicestershire, T20 champions in 2004, 2006 and 2011, are currently sitting in sixth place in the South Group having won two of their six matches this season.

The top four in the group qualify for the quarter-finals, which Leicestershire have not managed to do since winning the title in 2011.