McDonald leaves Renegades, Stars lose Bailey

The Melbourne Renegades have lost their captain Andrew McDonald to the Adelaide Strikers and the national T20 skipper George Bailey has moved from the Melbourne Stars to the Hobart Hurricanes. The eight Big Bash League teams have until this Friday to sign the majority of their players and most sides were active on Monday, when Phillip Hughes and Nathan Rimmington also changed teams.

Rimmington has moved from the Perth Scorchers to the Renegades, while Hughes has not surprisingly switched from the Sydney Thunder to the Strikers, after he signed with South Australia in the longer formats. He will be joined in Adelaide by the allrounder McDonald, who said he was excited to be working with the Strikers coach Darren Berry.

"While it was a big decision to leave the Renegades, I think the structure and plans that Chuck Berry has for the Strikers this summer are really impressive, and I'm really excited about coming over," McDonald said. "I've always enjoyed playing at Adelaide Oval, and I know a lot of the guys in the team, so this was an opportunity I wanted to commit to."

Bailey has also departed from Melbourne, leaving the MCG-based stars to play for the Hurricanes, an understandable manoeuvre given his status as captain of Tasmania. "I really like the way the Hurricanes line-up is coming together and I hope the team can go a step further than last season's semi-final," Bailey said.

In other deals on Monday, Michael Klinger re-signed with the Strikers, Ben Laughlin with the Hurricanes and the fast bowler Ben Edmondson joined the Scorchers. The Perth side also signed Joe Mennie, Tim Armstrong, Jason Behrendorff and Ashton Agar.

The Thunder named their first players for this season, with Sean Abbott, Scott Coyte, his brother Adam Coyte, Luke Doran and Gurinder Sandhu all signing up.