van der Merwe to fill in for Pollard at Somerset

Somerset have signed South Africa allrounder Roelof van der Merwe for the first eight games of the Friends Life t20. With Kieron Pollard not being available until the ninth game because of his commitments with the West Indies squad, van der Merwe will act as the club's second overseas player in the opening half of the competition, with left-arm spinner Murali Kartik being the other.

Director of cricket, Brian Rose, said the county had initially considered signing Dirk Nannes, the Australia fast bowler, but he wanted to play for the entire season, so they decided to bring in van der Merwe, who as an allrounder could play a similar role as Pollard.

"Knowing that Kieron was not going to be available for a while, we looked at other options in terms of an overseas player who could bat at no. 6, field well and also bowl effectively in the tournament," Rose told somersetcountycc.co.uk.

"We first discussed the possibility of Dirk Nannes joining us, but he wanted to play in all 16 games and I couldn't offer him that so he has subsequently joined Surrey. Then we found out that van der Merwe, who has done exceptionally well with bat and ball for South Africa in Twenty20 cricket, could be available after playing in the IPL."

Van der Merwe has played 13 Twenty20 internationals for South Africa and has an impressive economy-rate of 6.93. In this year's IPL, he played four games for Delhi Daredevils, took five wickets and went for just 6.20 an over. He was also Titans' leading wicket-taker during the Standard Bank Pro20 series in South Africa earlier in the year.

Rose said the fact that van der Merwe was a left-arm spinner was one of the reasons Somerset decided to sign him.

"Roelof is a big-hitting batsman, excellent fielder and bowls quickish slow left-arm deliveries, which tend to be very effective in 20-over cricket, so I believe he will prove an excellent signing.

"Once we knew that his IPL team would not be qualifying for the later stages of that tournament I moved very quickly to sign him. His visa came through on Friday morning and he is due to arrive in England on Sunday evening. We have a practice match arranged for Monday at the County Ground between our batsmen and bowlers so hopefully he will be involved in that."

Also expected to join Somerset from the IPL are Kartik and Alfonso Thomas who were both part of the squad last season. Their first match in the Friends Life t20 is against Hampshire on Wednesday.