R P Singh heads for Leicestershire

London, Mar 20 (UNI) World Cup discard left-arm seamer Rurda Pratap Singh has been signed by Leicestershire as their second overseas player for the season.

Senior coach Tim Boon finalised negotiations with 21-year-old R P Singh during the India leg of the tour to support the Cricket Star project.

He has played two Tests and 20 ODIs till now and is tipped for a big future at the international level. He guided Uttar Pradesh to their first Ranji title in 2005-06.

Boon said, ''The prospect of RP Singh linking up with Stuart Broad to spearhead our attack is an exciting one, while we also have a number of other good young seam bowlers at the club.

''He comes highly recommended by Greg Chappell, has a classic left arm bowling action and is deceptively quick.'' Singh will team up with 20-year-old Pakistan leg-spinner-batsman Mansoor Amjad, Leicestershire's other overseas signing.

''There is tremendous competition among left arm seamers in India with Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra, and it's a measure of his potential that he is up there in contention. The experience of playing in English conditions will help him to fulfil that potential,'' the coach was quoted as saying by BBC Sport.

''We wanted to select our overseas players for 2007 from emerging talent with the character to fit into the new club culture, but we were also aware that we needed to take more championship wickets, and we feel these two bowlers can help us to achieve that objective,'' Boon said.

After starring in the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh in 2004, he snapped up two wickets in his debut ODI match against Zimbabwe.

He also bagged the Man-of-the-Match in his third appearance after taking four wickets against Sri Lanka, while claiming nine victims in his two Test appearances on the 2006 tour of Pakistan.

India opener Virender Sehwag, a former Leicestershire player, had praised the left-hander saying, ''RP is a very talented bowler - his speciality is that he can bring the ball into the right handers and swing it both ways.'' UNI XC SAM DH BD1809