Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Dane Vilas sign for Lancashire on Kolpak contract

West Indies batting legend Shivnarine Chanderpaul and South African wicketkeeper-batsman Dane Vilas have been signed for Lancashire as part of the Kolpak Deal system. While it would certainly make sense for someone like Chanderpaul to sign such a deal, it would be clear that Dane Vilas is joined the bandwagon of the others to ensure that he does not play for South Africa in the next few years at the very least.

Vilas, who was a part of the Australian tour for South Africa in a backup commodity has been the latest Proteas player to tie himself to such a thing. This began with Kyle Abbott signing the deal initially before Rilee Rossouw followed suit. David Wiese also then went ahead and signed the deal for Sussex with the South African side left all but weak.

However, despite all of this, Chanderpaul, who turns 43 in a few months went ahead and added that he was certainly pleased to sign for the Lancashire cricket club. Moreover, this isn’t the worst of ideas given the fact that he has had a falling out with the WICB whom he claims to have forced him into retirement.

“It’s an extremely ambitious club and there are some fantastically talented young cricketers in the squad,” said the veteran left-hander, who has also had spells in English county cricket with Derbyshire, Durham, and Warwickshire.

Also read – All that you need to know about the Kolpak rule

“I’m looking forward to passing on some of my experience to the younger players in the squad. The 2017 season is going to be an exciting and progressive one for Lancashire County Cricket Club and all concerned with it.”

Dane Vilas also went on to state his pleasure of signing for the club. Vilas added: “I’m relishing the opportunity of playing county cricket. It’s going to be a huge challenge. There are a lot of exciting players in the squad and we’ll be hoping to challenge for silverware in all competitions.”