Glamorgan sign New Zealand's Hamish Rutherford as Marnus Labuschagne cover
- Published
Otago opener Hamish Rutherford has played 16 Tests, four one-day internationals and eight T20s for New Zealand
New Zealand batsman Hamish Rutherford is to join Glamorgan for the closing stages of the season as a replacement for Australia's Marnus Labuschagne.
Rutherford, 32, will be available for the One-Day Cup and the last four Championship matches.
The left-handed opener has played in 16 Tests, and has experience in English cricket with Worcestershire, Derbyshire and Essex.
Labuschagne and fellow Australian Michael Neser will head home in July.
The Queensland duo will be required to quarantine ahead of preparations for their domestic season.
Glamorgan have acted to shore up their top-order batting with David Lloyd (Welsh Fire), Chris Cooke (Birmingham Phoenix), and Colin Ingram (Oval Invincibles) all playing in the Hundred franchise tournament, running alongside the counties' 50-over competition which is likely to feature younger players around the circuit.
"Hamish has played a lot of cricket in this country, he's got a very good record in the County Championship and especially List A [one-day] cricket and his reputation is first-rate," Glamorgan director of cricket Mark Wallace told BBC Sport Wales.
"He's going to play the rest of the season which is fantastic and I'm sure he'll bring a lot to our group. It was important that we brought someone in with experience with four players missing [for the One-Day Cup], but we've also got four important Championship games."
Rutherford, a left-handed opening bat, has showed both sides of his game against Glamorgan in the past - clubbing a century off 62 balls for Worcestershire in the T20 match in 2020, but also grinding out a five-hour hundred for Derbyshire to prevent a Championship defeat in 2015.
"He's got the ability to be aggressive in the white-ball stuff, but he's also got a very good record of scoring runs in the four-day, red-ball game," said Wallace.
Glamorgan have also announced that Kiran Carlson will captain the team and assistant David Harrison will step up to be head coach for the One-Day Cup, with captain Cooke, vice-captain Lloyd and coach Matthew Maynard all involved in the Hundred.