Chris Gayle will re­turn to the Aus­tralia's Twen­ty20 Big Bash next sea­son, and Ke­mar Roach will make his de­but, the West­ern Aus­tralia Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion con­firmed yes­ter­day. The War­riors have an­nounced the sign­ing of West In­dies pair for their 2010-11 Twen­ty20 Big Bash cam­paign. The West In­dies cap­tain re­turns to suit up for West­ern Aus­tralia af­ter play­ing two match­es for the War­riors in last sum­mer's Big Bash, and his cur­rent key fast bowler will be along for the ride and take part in the Aus­tralian in­ter­state Twen­ty20 com­pe­ti­tion for the first time.

"The Twen­ty20 Big Bash com­pe­ti­tion con­tin­ues to grow in pro­file and stature and we have seen the ben­e­fits that all states have gained from qual­i­ty in­ter­na­tion­al re­cruits," said WA­CA chief ex­ec­u­tive and for­mer Aus­tralia bats­man Graeme Wood. "In Chris Gayle, we have se­cured one of the game's best Twen­ty20 play­ers for the sec­ond suc­ces­sive sea­son, while Ke­mar Roach is one of the most promis­ing young pace­men in World crick­et, and this was ev­i­dent when he be­came a great­ly sought af­ter play­er at the re­cent IPL-3 auc­tions." Wood added: "Chris Gayle was adopt­ed as a West­ern Aus­tralian, de­spite in­jury ru­in­ing his cam­paign with the Re­trav­i­sion War­riors in the 2009-10 Big Bash, and I have no doubt that he will be very keen to re­pay that loy­al­ty to the WA pub­lic when he re­turns lat­er this year.

Wood dis­closed there was al­so an­oth­er rea­son be­hind sign­ing Gayle for an­oth­er sea­son, and adding Roach to the play­ing ros­ter. "It has been ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ing to miss out on the op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­pete at the first two Cham­pi­ons League Twen­ty20 tour­na­ments, and we strong­ly be­lieve that with Chris and Ke­mar added to the ex­cit­ing lo­cal tal­ent in the War­riors' squad, we can give our­selves a great chance of qual­i­fy­ing for the 2011 edi­tion," he said. Gayle was re­strict­ed to just two match­es for WA last sum­mer af­ter pick­ing up a side strain in his first sea­son with the War­riors. He gave a glimpse of his awe­some pow­er with the wil­low in the War­riors' open­ing Big Bash fix­ture against the West End Red­backs at the WA­CA, blast­ing 40 from just 16 de­liv­er­ies un­til he was forced to re­tire hurt due to the in­jured side mus­cle.

His as­sault on the South Aus­tralians came less than a fort­night af­ter he smashed a 70-ball cen­tu­ry in the third Test against Aus­tralia in Perth, which in­clud­ed a tow­er­ing six off spin­ner Nathan Hau­ritz which land­ed on the roof of the Lillee Marsh Stand at the WA­CA. The 21-year-old Roach rose to promi­nence in the past 12 months as the stand-out bowler for West In­dies in their home Test and lim­it­ed-overs se­ries against Bangladesh mid­way through last year. He al­so im­pressed with his per­for­mances on the three-Test tour of Aus­tralia last De­cem­ber, when he side­lined Aus­tralia cap­tain and top bats­man Ricky Ponting with a fear­some blow to the el­bow dur­ing the WA­CA Test Match. Roach has al­so been heav­i­ly sought in the short­est forms of the game, and was one of the snapped up in the IPL-3 auc­tion, head­ing to reign­ing cham­pi­ons Dec­can Charg­ers for a price of US $720,000. (CMC)