AJ Tye, fresh from winning his fourth BBL crown with Perth Scorchers, has been hailed as an "amazing" addition to Northamptonshire's bid to scoop English cricket's equivalent title, the T20 Blast.
Perth's cult figure has been snapped up for county duty at the age of 36 by Northants, who believe that, along with his fellow globe-trotting Australian thirty-something Chris Lynn, death bowler Tye can bring a "world-class" boost to their bid.
The knuckle-ball maestro Tye had a brilliant campaign with Durham in last season's competition with 21 wickets in his 10 matches and he's picked up 67 Blast wickets in total in 48 matches, having also thrived with Gloucestershire.
Now Northants think they are on to a winner after the late-starting Tye, who in the BBL final even topped Rashid Khan by became the quickest man to 300 T20 wickets, opted to join his 32-year-old Australian international colleague Lynn in a push for the Steelbacks' first Blast triumph in seven years.
Captain Josh Cobb said that the pair, along with the returning England international David Willey, would give the team a "world-class" core "with Lynny at the top of the order and AJ now with the ball".
"AJ's got a fantastic record in T20 cricket and we were looking for someone to come in and bring real experience to the attack, someone that can bowl the tough overs in the latter part of the innings and be a banker for us at the death," Cobb said.
Head coach John Sadler added: "To get AJ on board is really pleasing, he's an amazing addition and gives our team a great balance."
Tye, capped 32 times for Australia in T20s as well as seven times in ODIs, said: "I'm very excited to be joining Northamptonshire for the Blast. They're a good team that's had success in the competition in the past so I'll be hoping that we can recreate that success this year.
"I'm looking forward to joining Lynny, it's always better to have him on your team than to try playing against him."
Tye's signing comes a couple of days after Essex announced that another Australian stalwart, 30-year-old allrounder Daniel Sams, was re-joining the county for the 2023 Blast.
