Meredith inks three-year extension at Hurricanes

Hobart Hurricanes quick Riley Meredith has penned a new deal that keeps him in purple until the end of the 2024-25 summer.

A three-year contract extension will see the 25-year-old, one of Australia’s quickest bowlers, extend his stay in Hobart to eight BBL seasons.

It is the second T20 deal Meredith has signed in the past fortnight, after he was snapped up by Mumbai Indians in the recent Indian Premier League auction.

More than 60 domestic Big Bash players came off contract at the end of recently concluded KFC BBL|11 season, with Meredith one of the big names on the table.

With his signature the Hurricanes have now shored up their fast bowling stocks, after locking away fellow Australian-capped quicks Nathan Ellis and Joel Paris on multi-year deals last year.

The trio join Tim David, Matthew Wade, Ben McDermott and D'Arcy Short as Canes signings for next summer.

Meredith, currently suffering from a side strain injury, said he was buoyed by the fact a number of Hurricanes teammates had put pen to paper swiftly after the conclusion of BBL|11.

“It’s great to have some certainty about where I’m going to be playing my cricket over the next few years,” he said.

“These past 12 months or so has been a little frustrating for me with the various niggles I’ve had, but the staff in Tassie have been great in supporting me to get back playing my best cricket as soon as possible.

“It’s great to see so many of the guys who have been with us for several years now also signing on, and I’m confident that together, when we play our best cricket we will be hard to beat.”

Tasmania hope to have the Hobart local back playing in the Marsh One-Day Cup clash against Victoria on March 6.

BBL clubs are currently under a contracting embargo while the league conducts its annual off-season review, but Meredith put pent o paper before the embargo came into force at the end of the BBL|11 season.

After debuting for the Hurricanes back in BBL|07 (in February 2018), Meredith emerged as a breakout star in the following campaign, earning the praise from the likes of Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson.

That season, the exciting quick (16 wickets) combined with England star Jofra Archer (18) to lead the Hurricanes to a first-placed finish, the only time the club has finished atop the BBL table.

It was in 2021 however that Meredith made his name on the global stage, via T20I and ODI debuts in Australia’s tours of New Zealand and West Indies respectively, but perhaps more notably via an eye-watering IPL deal.

As franchises scrambled for top-end quicks during last year’s auction, Meredith was the beneficiary of a bidding war between Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals, as the former snapped him up for $1.42m.

His base price deal of $186,000 with Mumbai for the upcoming season, however, represents a sizeable pay cut.

Meredith will join Hurricanes teammate David (who signed a staggering $1.53m deal) and Daniel Sams ($484,000) at Mumbai.

Unlike a host of Cricket Australia contracted players who must wait until the conclusion of Australia’s tour of Pakistan, the trio are available to play in the world’s richest domestic league from the opening weekend provided it doesn’t clash with state commitments.

This season’s IPL was reportedly set to begin on the final weekend of March.