SYD­NEY–Twen­ty20 star Car­los Brath­waite has joined reign­ing cham­pi­ons Syd­ney Thun­der for the re­main­der of the Big Bash League cam­paign, re­plac­ing West In­dies team­mate An­dre Rus­sell who has been ruled out with a ham­string in­jury.

The 28-year-old Bar­ba­di­an, who was va­ca­tion­ing over­seas re­cent­ly, is ex­pect­ed to link up with the fran­chise short­ly but there was no con­fir­ma­tion on if he would be ready for Sun­day's clash against Ho­bart Hur­ri­canes at Blund­stone Are­na.

"Car­los is ded­i­cat­ed to learn­ing and ad­vanc­ing his game. With both bat and ball he's a very skilled T20 crick­eter," said Thun­der coach Pad­dy Up­ton said.

"I've had the plea­sure of work­ing with him for a sea­son in the IPL and he re­al­ly is the high­est qual­i­ty in­di­vid­ual. "He's a top qual­i­ty crick­eter and per­son, which ticks the two big box­es when it comes to Thun­der re­cruit­ing play­ers."

Brath­waite came to promi­nence dur­ing the last year's Twen­ty20 World Cup in In­dia when he lashed six­es off the first four de­liv­er­ies off seam­er Ben Stokes in the last over of the fi­nal against Eng­land, to pro­pel West In­dies to a dra­mat­ic win.

He is a hard-hit­ting low­er or­der bats­man and steady seam­er, and com­pletes his all-round game as a sharp field­er.

Brath­waite is a mem­ber of both the Windies Test and One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al sides, and al­so cap­tains their T20 squad.

He re­places Rus­sell who on Wednes­day pulled up with an in­jured ham­string dur­ing a game against Mel­bourne Stars and had to be stretchered off. (CMC)