Both Kent club captain Sam Billings and team-mate Zak Crawley have been selected at the draft for the upcoming Australian T20 Big Bash League competition.

Billings, 32, will rejoin Brisbane Heat while England international batsman Crawley is also due to head Down Under again.

The 25-year-old has joined Perth Scorchers having made his maiden BBL appearance last season with Hobart Hurricanes.

Former Tonbridge School pupil Crawley will be in the same squad as Surrey’s Laurie Evans, who turned out for Minster in the Kent League Premier Division earlier in the summer.

Billings skippered the Oval Invincibles to success in The Hundred competition last month - but has endured a poor summer with Kent.

He stepped down as their skipper in four-day cricket for the rest of the season in June and hasn’t played for them in that format since, although Kent head coach Matt Walker has said Billings may return for their County Championship Division 1 run-in as they aim to avoid relegation.

Upon rejoining Brisbane Heat, he wrote on social media: “Buzzing to be back.”

The news comes around a week after it was revealed Billings is to play for Dubai Capitals next year in the second season of the DP World ILT20 in the United Arab Emirates.

The BBL is set to run from December 7 until January 24 but, before then, second-bottom Kent resume their fight for Division 1 survival against Nottinghamshire at Canterbury from Sunday.

They will do so without their first 2024 signing, England spinner Matt Parkinson, who has rejoined Division 2 Durham on loan - initially for their match against Sussex, which started yesterday.

Parkinson had played for Kent Spitfires in their unsuccessful One-Day Cup defence and had expressed a desire to remain with the club until the end of this campaign, too, if a deal could be struck between Kent and Lancashire.