Jayant Yadav, the India offspinner, has joined Middlesex on a short-term deal for the last four LV= Insurance County Championship matches of the season.

Yadav, 33, has taken 16 wickets at 29.06 in six Test matches for his country, the most recent of which came against Sri Lanka in March 2022. His best figures, 4 for 49, were against New Zealand in December 2021, at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

However, his stand-out performance in Test cricket arguably came on England’s Test tour of 2016-17, where he made his highest score of 104, batting at No.9 in the fourth Test at Delhi and adding 241 with the then-captain, Virat Kohli, in an innings victory.

“I am honoured and excited to join the prestigious Middlesex County Cricket Club for the upcoming Championship games and be a part of its rich cricketing history,” Yadav said in a club statement.

“I enjoyed my experience of playing county cricket last year,” he added, having played two matches for Warwickshire in their Championship run-in in 2022, “and am eagerly looking forward to the new stint with Middlesex and contributing to the club’s success.”

Yadav’s first outing is set to be against Championship challengers Essex at Chelmsford next week, prior to contests against Lancashire, Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire. In his first-class career to date he has taken 205 wickets, with best bowling figures of 7 for 58 for Haryana in the Ranji Trophy in 2019-20.

Middlesex’s Director of Cricket, Alan Coleman, said: “With Pieter Malan returning home to South Africa, we wanted to bolster the squad with another quality signing ahead of four crucial matches that lay ahead of us in September.

“We feel that spin will be an important factor in September and the opportunity to sign an international spinner of Jayant’s quality was too good an opportunity to turn down.

“He brings us that extra bit of something you get from an international cricketer, experience, quality, know how – all attributes that will prove hugely valuable to us in the coming games.

“We can’t wait to have him with us and wish him every success here over the coming month.”