Renegades rejig continues as Wildermuth re-joins Heat

The Melbourne Renegades have continued to re-shape their list after last season's bottom-placed finish, with allrounder Jack Wildermuth returning to the Brisbane Heat despite having a year left on his contract.

Wildermuth follows his former Renegades teammate Tom Cooper to the Heat for this season, while it was announced last week that Dan Christian has joined the Sydney Sixers despite also having a year to run on his contract.

Wildermuth, who played two T20s for Australia on a tour of Zimbabwe in 2018, made his KFC BBL debut with the Heat three years ago before heading to Melbourne and he was part of the Renegades' title-winning squad in BBL08.

The Renegades had 14 of their 18 contracting spots already filled for this season, but the departure of Christian and Wildermuth has relieved some salary cap pressure and freed up more space to regenerate their list.

There has been media speculation that Australia speedster James Pattinson may return to Melbourne this season, possibly reuniting with the Gades, while a UK Daily Mail report this week linked Englishman Joe Denly with a move to the red half of Melbourne.

The Heat, who have made the play-offs once in the past seven seasons, have already made some list changes and more are expected in the coming weeks.

In addition to the arrivals of Cooper and Wildermuth, left-hander Matt Renshaw has joined the Adelaide Strikers while it's understood Ben Cutting (who is contracted with the Heat) is set to join the Sydney Thunder.

The Heat have also held discussions with South African star AB de Villiers about a return this season.

The most recent of Wildermuth's nine matches for the Heat was a memorable one; the right-hander hit 29 from 16 balls in his side's 2017 semi-final against the Sixers, which Brisbane lost in a Super Over.

In addition to playing those two T20 Internationals against Zimbabwe and Pakistan, the 27-year-old has also been part of Australia A squads.

"I know that there were some good reports on the national side of things around his efforts on the Zimbabwe tour and the Australia 'A' quad series in India the same year when he produced some match-winning efforts," Heat coach Darren Lehmann said.

"Jack has heaps of potential with bat and ball and we see a lot of upside to him coming back into the Heat set-up."

"He's had a few years to mature since he last played with us and I know how highly regarded he is within the Bulls squad, so he adds some real skill to our overall squad composition."

Brisbane Heat BBL|10 squad (so far): Tom Banton (Eng), Max Bryant, Joe Burns, Tom Cooper, Ben Cutting, Matthew Kuhnemann, Ben Laughlin, Chris Lynn, Jimmy Peirson, Mitchell Swepson, Jack Wildermuth