Shane Watson has joined Big Bash League Twenty20 side the Brisbane Heat for the next three seasons.

Ipswich-born Watson will return home to Queensland for the second edition of the BBL, after spending last season with champions the Sydney Sixers, for whom he did not play a game.

Watson, who is again nursing an injury after suffering a calf tear on Australia’s recent disastrous limited overs tour of Great Britain, was on Wednesday named in Australia’s preliminary 30-man squad for the ICC World T20 Cup in Sri Lanka later this year.