Glamorgan Cricket have today confirmed the signing of Queensland batsman Jimmy Maher as their overseas player for the 2001 season.

Maher, 26, is a left-handed opening batsman who played in two One-Day Internationals for Australia in 1997/98. He has been in prolific form for Queensland in both the Pura Milk Cup (formerly the Sheffield Shield) where he is the leading run scorer in the competition this season, and he also has an outstanding one-day record, having scored eight one-day centuries with a career average in excess of 50.

He will be available for the first match of the season in mid-April and then for the remainder of the summer. Although originally contracted to play for Glamorgan in 2001, Jacques Kallis was unable to come over, though he is expected to return in 2002, and with Matthew Elliott - Glamorgan's overseas player last season - also unavailable, the county has had to move quickly to snap up Maher.

Glamorgan Captain Steve James said: "I'm delighted that we've managed to sign Jimmy and I'm confident he will be a major success for Glamorgan this summer. He has an impressive record in Australian domestic cricket and having established a few weeks ago that Matthew Elliott wouldn't be able to return to us this season, Jimmy was at the top of our list in terms of potential successors.

"He will hopefully step in where Matthew left off at the end of last summer and I'm looking forward to establishing another solid opening partnership with him."

"With Division One Championship cricket to look forward to it was important to us to be stiffening up the batting, especially as Ian Thomas will be missing the start of the season owing to university commitments, but Jimmy has an outstanding one-day record as well and I think he'll contribute greatly in the three one-day competitions."

Maher said: "I did get approaches from one or two English counties as well but the speed and efficiency with which Glamorgan have worked, together with the many conversations I've had with Jeff Hammond [coach], Matthew Elliott and others over here who know the Glamorgan set-up, certainly helped me to make my mind up.

"I've always wanted to play county cricket in the UK and I can't think of anywhere better to be doing so than in Wales. It'll be a stiff challenge for me, especially as the side achieved promotion last season, but I can't tell you how much I'm already looking forward to it."

Glamorgan First XI coach Jeff Hammond said: "Jimmy's had a fabulous season out here in Australia and I think he'll be a real asset to Glamorgan. I think our need was for a batsman, ideally a left hander, and if you take a look around at who is available for a full season quality left-handers aren't exactly thick on the ground and there's no doubt Jimmy stands out.

"He's talented with the bat, a good fielder, a wonderful team man and he'll be extremely committed to helping Glamorgan achieve their goals this season. In my view it's a great signing."

Glamorgan's chief executive Mike Fatkin said: "Losing a player of Jacques Kallis's calibre was a big blow as he's arguably the leading all-rounder in world cricket today, though we're all hopeful he'll be able to return in 2002.

"We did ask Matthew Elliott whether there was any prospect of him coming back over but as soon as we established that this wasn't possible, Steve James and Jeff Hammond identified Jimmy Maher as the player they wanted to fill the vacancy, and although one or two other counties have been talking to him, we're delighted to put an end to all of the speculation by announcing that he's agreed to come to Glamorgan."

"Securing one of the top-flight international players is becoming increasingly difficult for first-class counties.

"With ten Test-playing countries now, there is so much cricket that clashes with our domestic season and when you consider that all ten are playing during the course of our 2001 summer it only serves to highlight the problems we have in attracting the Kallises, the Pollocks and the Tendulkars on a regular basis.

"But we're confident that in Jimmy Maher we have signed one of the best available players and we're really looking forward to his arrival."

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