Yorkshire County Cricket Club have bolstered their overseas ranks for 2010 with the signing of Herschelle Gibbs for the 2010 Friends Provident t20 competition.

Yorkshire County Cricket Club have bolstered their overseas ranks for 2010 with the signing of Herschelle Gibbs for the 2010 Friends Provident t20 competition.

The signing of Ryan Harris was announced in October 2009 and the addition of Daryl Tuffey as early season cover for Harris was made official earlier last week. Now Yorkshire have added Gibbs as their second overseas player permitted in this year’s Friends Provident t20 competition.

A 35-year-old South African right-handed batsman, Gibbs is seen as the ideal batsman to add power and runs to Yorkshire’s Twenty20 line-up. He is known worldwide as one of the most explosive and entertaining players there is - a player with all of the shots in his repertoire that can make a real difference in one-day cricket as he has shown in his 245 One-Day Internationals and 20 International T20 matches for South Africa.

In March 2006 at Johannesburg Gibbs scored a magnificent 175 from only 111 balls to chase down Australia’s 434 target in 49.5 overs and clinch a 3-2 series win in what was describe as the greatest one-day match  of all time. Then on March 16, 2007, during a World Cup game against Netherlands , Gibbs smashed himself into the record books hitting 6 sixes off Dan van Bunge's fourth over – a record for international matches.

Gibbs will join up with the Yorkshire squad in readiness for the game against Durham Dynamos on 10th June and will be available to play in all of Yorkshire ’s Friends Provident t20 matches from then on.

Herschelle Gibbs, told Yorkshire Radio: “I’ve always enjoyed playing cricket in the UK and have very good memories of Headingley as I got my first World Cup hundred there in 1999. I’m really looking forward to playing over there and I’ll hopefully help to lead the troops towards some sort of success. I hope we’ll have some good weather and we can treat the home spectators to some very entertaining cricket.”

Martyn Moxon, Yorkshire ’s Director of Professional Cricket, said: “Herschelle will add power, runs and experience to our batting line-up in this year’s t20 competition and he is also a fine fielder. He’s a vastly experienced international cricketer with the ability to win matches on his own if he hits his best form. I’m looking forward to seeing him play for Yorkshire this year and I’m sure our members and supporters will enjoy Herschelle’s style of cricket too.”