MEL­BOURNE, Aus­tralia – West In­dies Women’s cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews will trans­port her all-round tal­ents to the Mel­bourne Rene­gades once again for the 10th sea­son of the Women’s Big Bash League in Aus­tralia af­ter she penned a one-year deal with the club.

The 26-year-old – the reign­ing ICC Women’s Twen­ty20 Play­er-of-the-Year – re­joins the Rene­gades un­der the new con­tract pro­vi­sion of the WB­BL that grants clubs the op­por­tu­ni­ty of sign­ing over­seas play­ers ahead of the play­er draft.

Matthews said she was look­ing for­ward to play­ing for a third con­sec­u­tive sea­son with the Rene­gades in the tour­na­ment.

“I’m su­per ex­cit­ed to be back with the girls; I’m con­fi­dent I can play a mas­sive role with­in the team and help put up some re­al­ly good per­for­mances and hope­ful­ly lead us to a fi­nals se­ries,” she said.

“I’ve built some re­al­ly strong bonds and re­la­tion­ships at the Rene­gades over the past cou­ple of years. The main thing I can ap­pre­ci­ate about this club is the way they bring me in and make me feel so wel­come. I can step back in­to what feels like a mas­sive fam­i­ly.

“We haven’t achieved what we’ve want­ed to the last cou­ple of years, but with some key mem­bers back and some new ad­di­tions cook­ing up as well, I’m con­fi­dent we can go out there and put it all to­geth­er.”

Rene­gades gen­er­al man­ag­er, James Rosen­garten said get­ting the sig­na­ture of Matthews was a key tar­get for the club’s pre-draft list spot.

“We’re de­light­ed to have Hay­ley with us for an­oth­er sea­son,” he said. “She’s an in­cred­i­ble all-round crick­eter and leader, we can’t wait to see what she can bring this sea­son with bat and ball.

“She brings so much to the Rene­gades, and we’re very hap­py to se­cure such an in-de­mand play­er pri­or to the draft.”

The Rene­gades wel­comed Matthews with great ex­cite­ment last sea­son af­ter she put on a se­ries of in­cred­i­ble per­for­mances for West In­dies Women against Aus­tralia Women, no­tably a mem­o­rable hun­dred at North Syd­ney Oval.

But she was un­able to du­pli­cate that ef­fort in a dis­ap­point­ing sea­son for Rene­gades, who end­ed last with on­ly two wins de­spite her fin­ish­ing as their joint-lead­ing bowler with 14 wick­ets at 27.64. Her sea­son to­tal with the bat was on­ly 255 runs at 19.61 and a strike rate 114.34.

CMC