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Leicestershire, the county champions, and Nottinghamshire, ambitious for quick progress under their new director of cricket, Clive Rice, have both opted for Test bowlers who have been omitted from their country's World Cup squads in announcing the recruitment of new overseas appointments.

Leicestershire have signed Australian seamer Mike Kasprowicz, the tall Queenslander who played for Essex in 1994, to replace Phil Simmons, the Trinidadian all-rounder who will be a member of the West Indies' World Cup party.

Notts have replaced leg-spinner Paul Strang in their overseas berth with Vasbert Drakes, the Barbadian fast bowler who played for Sussex in the 1996 and 1997 seasons but who is ineligible to represent the West Indies since basing himself in South Africa and failing to make a strictly enforced minimum number of appearances in domestic cricket in the Caribbean.

Leicestershire's cricket manager, Jack Birkenshaw, yesterday announced himself ``very surprised'' that Kasprowicz, who took 57 championship wickets at an average of 30.73 in his season with Essex, had not been named in the Australian party for the World Cup.

``I had him pencilled in for their squad and we moved in quickly as soon as we learned that such a good player had been left out,'' he said.

Drakes took 50 championship wickets in his first season with Sussex and 33 in his second. Rice yesterday commented: ``He is capable of genuine pace and the fact that he is available for the whole of the English season was an especially important consideration for us.''

Both players have signed one-year contracts.

Kent have elected retired company director Carl Openshaw, 60, as the county's new chairman.