THE top cricket clubs in Hampshire are being offered “near-international standard” Australian cricketers for the 2013 season.

Hampshire Cricket chairman Rod Bransgrove has written to most of the Southern Electric Premier League top flight clubs explaining how Cricket Australia are keen to send “five or six” of their most promising players to Hampshire next summer.

And Bransgrove is keen to see them snapped up by SEPL clubs.

At present, the identity of the players earmarked for a summer in Hampshire are not known.

But they could well include members of the Australian under-19 side that won the under-19 World Cup on home soil last summer.

Full story in today's Daily Echo