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After Usama Mir and Haris Rauf of Pakistan were called
up to play for their countries, England batter Dan Lawrence was signed by the
Melbourne Stars as an overseas replacement player. Lawrence will play for the
Stars for the rest of the BBL.
Lawrence was not chosen in the September draft despite
having previously participated in four BBL games with the Brisbane Heat in
2020.
After two straight victories, Stars moved up to fourth
place in the standings, but Mir and Rauf will miss the rest of the competition
because they were picked for Pakistan’s limited-overs trip of New Zealand in
January.
The PCB only granted No Objection Certificates (NOCs)
for Rauf, Mir, and Sydney Thunder signing Zaman Khan to play in the BBL until
December 28 because of “the workload of players and the future tours
programme of the national men’s team.” The first match of the tour is not
scheduled for January 12 in Auckland.
This followed a heated dispute between Rauf and the
PCB following his decision to skip the Australia Test series and the public
criticism he received from PCB executives. Subsequently, it was revealed that
Rauf had received a show-cause letter from the PCB board, which asked him to
justify his withdrawal from Test selection.
Lawrence’s availability for the remainder of the
competition is a unique victory for the Stars, who have struggled with their
foreign acquisitions. They gallantly selected Harry Brook with the second pick
in the BBL foreign draft, only for Brook to unexpectedly withdraw from the
competition because of his international commitments after being picked for
both the December Test tour of India and the December white-ball tour of the
Caribbean by England.
Before Christmas, they signed left-arm spinner Liam
Dawson of England for a stint of three games, but he was unavailable after
that. Imad Wasim could be signed by them for the post-Christmas period.
Lawrence will add some depth to Stars’ top-order which
has yet to fire fully despite winning their last two matches. He also knows
Stars skipper Glenn Maxwell having played a handful of games with him at London
Spirit last year where the pair batted together on a couple of occasions.