Rogers signs for Derbyshire

Derbyshire continue to bolster their squad with the signing of Chris Rogers, the Western Australia batsman. He has plenty of county experience including a previous stint at Derbyshire and spells at Leicestershire and Northamptonshire and will provide back-up for Mahela Jayawardene in two blocks.

Rogers will start the season as Jayawardene is involved with the Indian Premier League and the Sri Lankan captain is then away again on international duty for Sri Lanka from mid-July.

Derbyshire's head of cricket John Morris said: "It is great news to have another player of the quality of Chris Rogers joining our playing staff for the coming season. It was important that we again identified and got the right type of character and player in our dressing room."

As the counties are only allowed one overseas player from next year, Rogers is only able to be a fill-in, but with a weight of domestic runs under his belt, he is a tidy back-up. He is also still pushing for a Test opener spot, but an untimely appendix problem ruled him out of contention for Australia's Tests against Sri Lanka, when Phil Jaques weighed in with a century, sealing his place there for now.

Morris added: "Mahela will leave us around July 10 to play in Sri Lanka's series against India and Chris will again take over at this point. After that date Mahela's international commitments are yet to be confirmed but whenever he is not here, Chris will be and that is great position to be in."

At this point it seems as if Rogers could be playing more than the overseas player he is scheduled to fill in for, with Jayawardene's commitments possibly ruling him out for more than half of the county season.