Brisbane Heat mainstay Chris Lynn has labelled his club's new deal with South Africa great AB de Villiers as the "biggest signing" in the history of the Big Bash League.
The deal was about two years in the making and wouldn't have been possible without a heartfelt email from head coach Darren Lehmann.
Lehmann wrote to De Villiers that the club understands spending time with his family during the Christmas-New Year period is his main priority. There wasn't anyway a regular poke at his nose about the deal.
As per Lynn, De Villiers fell for the club's way of communication and finally gave in a signature of commitment for this year's edition.
"'Boof' actually wrote him a nice lengthy email saying, 'No issues if you don't want to come, it's all good, you have to take care of your family," Lynn, who hailed the deal signed this Tuesday (October 1) as if the "Christmas has come early", was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au.
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"'Christmas time is all about family and friends and enjoying yourself.' It was something that might have got him over the line."
"Having known AB, you don’t want to keep poking the bear. We wanted to sign him, every club wanted to sign him, the BBL wanted to sign him… The fact we didn't chase him every day (was helpful)."
De Villiers, who retired from international cricket last year after an illustrious career, has been plying trade in various T20 leagues around the world. Just recently, he played for Middlesex in the T20 Vitality Blast in UK and scored 348 runs in eight innings at a strike-rate of 182.19.
"We want him to play as many games as he can, but we're really understanding that Christmas and New Year's is really special to spend at home when you've been playing international cricket for so many years," Lehmann said expecting De Villiers to play for the club in January.
"He wants to play in the best competitions, he wants to play the best cricket he can. He's a cricket 'nuffie', which is great. He's going to be fantastic for our young guys. He loves playing the game, he's just passionate… Hopefully he stays on for years to come."
De Villiers will fill the void left by Brendon McCullum, the former New Zealand skipper, who retired from BBL duties for Brisbane Heat this year.
"What he's going to bring to not only to Brisbane, but the competition as well, is the next level (of talent) that we've been chasing for a number of years," said Lynn.
"With Brendon retiring it's basically a clean swap with AB and we're looking forward to not only what he can do on the field, we're just looking for another experienced champion the change room."
(Inputs from cricket.com.au)
