West Indies star Smith to team up at Greenfield

Devon Smith in action for the West Indies in 2015

Greenfield cricket club have announced the capture of former West Indies test star Devon Smith as their professional for the forthcoming campaign in the Greater Manchester League.

The ambitious Ladhill Lane outfit have drafted in the 36-year-old as a replacement for Yaseen Valli, who now has injury and visa issues so can no longer come to the UK this summer.

Now a qualified coach, Smith was initially a belligerent left-handed opening batsman from Grenada.

He was drafted into the West Indies squad ahead of the Test series against India in March 2002, after making 750 runs for Windward Islands in the Busta Cup, though he made his debut 13 months later against a far tougher opponent.

In his first Test, against Australia, Smith scored a blazing 62 in a losing cause.

In 2004, he was selected to open against England, and he immediately pulled his team out of a hole with a stroke-filled century.

But just as he began to settle into a groove, a freak net injury left him with a fractured thumb, and he missed the next two Tests.

He was axed after another failure in the Test series against Australia in 2005-06.

Smith returned to prominence during the 2011 World Cup during which he opened in the absence of an injured Adrian Barath.

He scored his maiden one-day hundred in West Indies' group match against Ireland and got two more half-centuries in the tournament.

Smith’s last of 38 Test appearances came in 2015.

Last season Smith played 17 matches for Scholes in the Huddersfield League, scoring 855 runs at an average of 57.