MEL­BOURNE – West In­dies cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews will spend a third suc­ces­sive sea­son with Mel­bourne Rene­gades af­ter sign­ing a one-year deal, ahead of Oc­to­ber’s start of the 10th edi­tion of the Women’s Big Bash League in Aus­tralia.

The 26-year-old su­per­star all-rounder cap­tained Rene­gades last sea­son, al­so scor­ing 255 runs with a strike-rate of 114 and grab­bing 14 wick­ets with her off-spin.

Rene­gades strug­gled, nev­er­the­less, win­ning just two of their 14 league games to fin­ish bot­tom of the ta­ble on four points.

“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,” Matthews said.

“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.”

She added: “One of the biggest things for me, af­ter not hav­ing the best sea­sons with the Rene­gades in my first two years, I def­i­nite­ly feel like I want to go out there and give the club a lot more.”

An el­e­gant, at­tack­ing right-han­der, Matthews scored 253 runs in her first sea­son with Rene­gades and took nine wick­ets, the fran­chise knocked out in the fi­nal qual­i­fi­er af­ter fin­ish­ing sec­ond in the reg­u­lar sea­son.

Matthews will be joined by for­mer cap­tain So­phie Mo­lineux, who makes a re­turn af­ter be­ing ruled for the en­tire­ty of last sea­son with in­jury.

“It ham­pered us not hav­ing our full squad to­geth­er for ei­ther of the two years I’ve been there … just hav­ing So­phie around the group again is go­ing to be such a plus,” said Matthews, who re­placed Mo­lin­eaux as cap­tain last sea­son.

“I saw what she was able to do at the WPL (Women’s Pre­mier League), the way she was able to go out there and ex­press her­self and just be free, we’re su­per ex­cit­ed to have her back at the Rene­gades and hope­ful­ly do­ing even bet­ter.”

Matthews was signed un­der the WB­BL’s new mul­ti-year, pre-draft con­tract pro­vi­sion, which al­lows fran­chis­es to sign one for­eign play­er for up to three years out­side of the draft.

CMC