Leicestershire have signed former Essex batsman Rishi Patel on a three-year deal.
While 22-year-old Patel currently has a modest record at senior level – he averages 17.00 in first-class cricket and 21.66 in List A cricket – he has a good record in second XI cricket and is seen as an exciting prospect.
In particular, he registered five second XI centuries in the 2018 season, added three more in 2019 and was considered good enough to play four Championship matches in Essex’s 2019 title-winning season.
A product of the Essex academy and Cambridge MCCU, he had a brief spell on loan at Leicestershire towards the end of the 2020 season. Clearly the club’s head coach, Paul Nixon, likes what he saw.
“Rishi is an exciting batsman who we are massively looking forward to working with again,” Nixon said. “He has a huge amount of talent, which we saw during the loan spell here.
“Rishi adds further competition to a young, hungry squad and we look forward to him scoring lots of runs for us. We know that Rishi will continue to grow with us as a cricketer and he’s all set for a big winter to settle in ahead of the 2021 season.”
Source: ESPN Crickinfo