Nottinghamshire's new signing Nicky Boje of South Africa says he is 'honoured' to be invited to realise a dream of playing county cricket as an overseas player.

The left-arm spinner put pen to paper on his contract yesterday and will join the club early next month to take over from fellow South African Lance Klusener, who is only contracted to play for the first three weeks of the season.

Boje said: "It came as quite a

shock when I got the call from the team manager Clive Rice asking if I would like to play for Notts this summer.

"But it's always been an ambition of mine to play county cricket in England and I was not going to let this opportunity pass me by.

"I'm honoured to be asked and now I'm going to give it my best shot and hopefully help Notts to have a very successful season."

Boje replaces New Zealand's Chris Cairns, who is unable to play this summer after suffering a serious knee injury in the recent Test series against England.