In order to regain form and make a comeback into the Indian squad, out of favour Gautam Gambhir and Piyush Chawla have decided to play for Essex and Somerset, respectively, in the remaining matches of the county season. BCCI has also given them a nod in this regard and they would be joining their respective teams by the start of the next week.

Earlier in 2009, Chawla played for Sussex and had a great run as he picked up 36 wickets that season at an average of 27.25.

Gambhir has been side-lined after his sloppy form in the series against England and the success of Shikhar Dhawan, which has taken India to some sensational wins in the recent past, has done no good to his comeback aspirations. He has played 54 Tests for India and scored 4021 runs at an average of 44.18. Gambhir is the first Indian to sign for a County this season. In 2012, Harbhajan Singh represented Essex for the second half of the season.

Gambhir will be replacing New Zealand's Hamish Rutherford as the County's overseas recruit.

Gambhir didn’t have a great outing in Indian Premier League which made his comeback even more difficult but this can turn around things for him and he needs to make this opportunity count because of a very packed Indian batting order in both Test and ODI formats.

Apart from Gambhir, Chawla will also be heading to England to play for Somerset as BCCI has given him the No Objection Certificate (NOC). He is currently waiting for his VISA so that he can feature in the remaining season for his new county team.

Somerset is at number seven spot in the tally of the Division Table and with five matches still in hand, they would be looking to strengthen their spin department with someone like Chawla, who has a decent experience under his belt to play in English conditions. Somerset will play their next game on August 20 at Edgbaston.

Somerset had originally signed Pakistan left-arm spinner Abdur Rehman but he pulled out after being named in the Pakistan squad to play Zimbabwe.