Love signs for Warwickshire

Martin Love will join Warwickshire next season on a one-year contract. Love, the 32-year-old Australian top-order batsman, averages 50.30 in first-class cricket and has Test match experience, having played five games between 2002 and 2003. He will be available for the entire season.

Love already has county experience, at Durham and Northamptonshire where he scored more than 4000 runs, including ten centuries in all forms of cricket. He made his debut for Queensland, aged 18, in the 1992-93 Sheffield Shield final and he was voted State Player of the Year in 2003.

"It was important that we signed a top quality batsman to replace Nick Knight," said Mark Greatbatch, Warwickshire's director of coaching, "and we are delighted that Martin will be joining us next season. He is a player with a proven pedigree, a winning attitude and an excellent work ethic."