England batsman Dawid Malan signs for Yorkshire

The Roehampton-born 32-year-old will join up with his new team-mates at the end of the month, and will prepare for the upcoming season with coach Andrew Gale and his coaching staff.

Speaking about the move following England’s victory in the First IT20 in New Zealand, Malan said: “I have had 13 happy and successful seasons with Middlesex, and I will always be grateful to the staff, players and supporters for their encouragement over the years.

“However, this feels like the right time to embrace a new challenge and I am excited by the prospect of joining Yorkshire, one of the great county clubs in English cricket.

“I am looking forward to moving to Leeds, and starting a new chapter of my career.”

Gale said: “It is a fantastic signing for us. As soon as we realised that Dawid had the potential to leave Middlesex, he was a player that we always wanted to speak to. He fits the mould of what we are looking for.

“It is fair to say that we have lacked consistency with the bat for a number of years. We have looked at bringing people in for a while, but it had to fit the right mould for us.

“We needed somebody with experience and Dawid has got Test experience. Not so long ago, we were watching him score runs for England in the Ashes.

“Hopefully, with his experience, it will give us a bit more consistency with the bat.”

Malan, an England left-hander who has played for Middlesex since 2006, has scored 11,229 First-Class runs – 724 of those in 15 Tests. He averages 37.31 in 188 First-Class matches, including 25 hundreds, 58 fifties.

With the batsman currently away in New Zealand with the England squad, Gale is excited about the qualities that Malan will bring across all formats.

“He is an excellent white ball cricketer,” Gale continued. “He had a good T20 campaign for Middlesex last year. When he gets in, he is very explosive. We have seen him at the top of the order recently for England.

“It creates a selection headache for us all. We feel that we need competition for places to push the lads who have been in the team for the last couple of years and to give us more depth. I think that Dawid gives us that.

“In red ball cricket over the last few years, Gary Ballance has carried the batting at times. We felt that we needed to add another player of that calibre to it. It will certainly help the younger players like Will Fraine, Harry Brook, Tom Loten, Matthew Revis and James Wharton who have had a taste of it and been in and around it. It will show them the standards that need to be set.

“It is nice to get our business done really early and we are hopeful of announcing our overseas players in the coming weeks. We are putting together a squad that is going to be consistent and competitive across all formats.”

The former Middlesex captain, who has played for the county since 2006, signed a contract with Middlesex until the end of 2021, but Yorkshire have moved quickly to secure the services of one of only seven players to surpass 1,000 runs in County Cricket in 2019 (1,005).

Malan has topped 1,000 First-Class runs in an English summer on three occasions (2010, 2014 and 2019).