West Indies bowler Shannon Gabriel joins Gloucestershire for County Championship climax

The 31-year-old has moved to Bristol for the final three games of the Division Two season as they push for promotion

Gloucestershire's Division One promotion push will be boosted by the signing of West Indies seamer Shannon Gabriel for the final three County Championship matches of the season.

The 31-year-old is available for the visit of Sussex, the trip to New Road to face Worcestershire and the final round clash with Northamptonshire at the County Ground in September, and will join up after the upcoming multi-format series against India.

Gabriel has a wealth of experience to draw on and averages 28.86 with the ball in first-class cricket. He has made 70 appearances for the Windies across all three formats, taking 165 wickets in all.

Of those outings, three of them came in the recently concluded World Cup against England, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

In February, he was banned for four ODIs after directing a homophobic slur towards Joe Root during the third Test against England in St Lucia.

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"I’m really looking forward to joining up with Gloucestershire in September and I will be trying my best to help the team push for promotion to Division One," he said. "Hopefully I’ll be carrying some good form off the back of the Test series against India."

Head coach Richard Dawson added: "Shannon gives us some genuine pace and international experience. He will bring that extra pick me up for the last three weeks of the season which is a tough slog after playing T20 cricket along with four months of four-day cricket.

"He gives us another string to our bow in our bowling attack and he will be playing Test cricket against India so he will be match fit, I’m really looking forward to getting him involved.

"Obviously, we’ve played some very good cricket this season and we want to maintain that and if we do, it will go a long way to dictating where we finish in the table."

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