Duanne Olivier has been snapped up by Derbyshire for the first half of the English county season.

He will join Hardus Viljoen in leading the pace attack for the first seven County Championship matches, and he hopes to play throughout the One-Day Cup campaign, subject to the approval of the Cricket South Africa board.

‘The 2016 season taught us that we needed to take 20 wickets and we didn’t look like doing that,’ said Derbys’ cricket adviser Kim Barnett, who played for several seasons with Boland in the eighties.

‘He comes highly recommended. He is a tall, quick bowler who is keen to prove himself and he will give us another quality option.

‘We identified new-ball bowling as an area we wanted to strengthen, especially for the first half of the season in red and white ball cricket.’

The Knights opening bowler, who made his international debut in 2017, has taken 17 Test wickets in five Tests, seven of them in England on the 2017 tour, where he played in the third Test at Trent Bridge and the fourth Test at Old Trafford.

Overall, he has taken 284 first-class wickets in 72 matches, at 22.04, including 16 five-wicket hauls.

New Zealand bowler Mitchell Santner will  arrive in July for the remainder of the season, and Barnett is happy to have secured the two signings.

‘Recruitment is tough, because the IPL and white ball is taking people away from county cricket on finance alone,’ said Barnett. ‘You have to work around IPL, Test matches in April and camps at the end of June. You have to have a pool of four or five targets and make sure they are appropriate, so I am pleased we’ve got two over the line.’

Photo: Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix