Leicestershire county professional Ben Smith will be Central Districts' overseas player this summer.

Smith will be based in Hawke's Bay and will play both Shell Cup and Shell Trophy campaigns for the team.

Central Districts (CD) chief executive Blair Furlong told CricInfo today that with Mathew Sinclair, Craig Spearman and possibly Glen Sulzberger involved with the New Zealand team during its home campaign, Smith would be an ideal player to fill their gap.

Smith played 16 matches for Leicestershire this year and scored 610 runs at 30.50. Capped by the county in 1995, he has played cricket in Hawke's Bay before.

Three seasons ago he played for the Central club in Napier and was to return the following summer but was injured.

"Dipak Patel, our coach, was in England recently and he had a talk with Ben about coming out and he has just agreed," Furlong said.

CD will be hoping that it has the full services of Smith. It appointed Craig White last year and he was called to South Africa for England.

CD has also announced that the former executive officer of Manawatu Cricket, Ross Benoit is to be manager of the CD first team this year.

Members of the CD squad go into a pre-season camp at the Rugby Institute at Massey University next week for an intensive build-up to the season's campaign.

© CricInfo