Spen Victoria have signed Indian Dhruv Mohan as their overseas player for the forthcoming season.

The 22-year-old batsman was recommended to the Bradford League Division One club by former captain Solly Adam, and follows a long line of distinguished players from his country who have starred for Spen.

They include Vinod Kambli, Rohan Gavaskar - son of Sunil - Seraj Bahutule and Wasim Jaffer.

Stylish right-hander Mohan impressed during a successful first full season for Maharashtra in the Ranji Trophy.

He made his debut in 2003, scoring 134 runs in two matches, but it was last season that he really came to the fore.

In his first innings of his opening match of 2004, Mohan hit a maiden first-class century - 101 against Baroda.

He bettered that with a career-best 122 against Assam, and totalled 323 runs in five matches for an average of 40.37. His overall first-class average is a very healthy 41.54.

And Mohan's one-day record also stands up well. In eight matches in the Ranjit Trophy One-Day competition he has made 245 runs at an average of 33.05, including a highest score of 77.

He has made two fifties and his scoring rate per 100 balls is 97.22.

Mohan, who was born in Delhi but moved to Pune to fulfil his cricketing commitments, moved into the first-class game after finishing a masters degree in commerce at university.

At club level he captains Cadence Cricket Academy's senior side in Pune.

Spen's cricket chairman Alan Birkinshaw said: "We are delighted that Dhruv has agreed to join us.

"We have received very favourable reports about him from contacts in India and are looking forward to having him as a member of our new-look team.

"Dhruv was excited about the chance to play cricket in England. He is a very focused and intelligent young man who wants to do well.

"For our part, we wanted a specialist batsman as our overseas professional this time. We haven't been good at posting big scores in recent seasons and hope that Dhruv can help us rectify that."

Unpredictable Spen, who finished runners-up in 2003 but only avoided relegation in the final match of last season -when they were without an overseas player - hope that Mohan will arrive in England on April 4 so that he can train with his new team-mates and play in the pre-season friendly at Townville on April 10.

Rao Anjum was Spen's overseas player in 2002 and 2003 but was prevented from returning last year due to visa problems.