Harris is the first man picked in the Test team, according to captain Michael Clarke. He wants to soldier on to next year's Ashes and this week added the World Cup to his bucket list. All of those things, to say nothing of his physical condition, mean the 34-year-old paceman is likely to be available for one or two BBL games at best next summer.

Brisbane is believed to have made Harris an offer to stay, but rival clubs are aware that he could be on the market and are weighing up whether to make a play.

Harris' ability to play through pain reached legendary proportions when he bowled Australia to a famous series win in South Africa in March with bone visible through the skin on his knee and a debilitating hip injury.

It would be a huge gamble on the national selectors' part to recall him to the one-day team, given the need to preserve his fitness for the subsequent Ashes defence. But Harris, who is recovering from surgery on the battered knee and is not expected to play the next Test series against Pakistan, was as willing as ever when asked about his World Cup ambitions this week.

"I've been wanting to play one-day cricket for a long time but I guess playing Test cricket, they've pigeon-holed me a little bit," he said at a function in Sydney.

"It's going to be tough for me to get back into that side, but it's going to be great fun. I've been part of a T20 World Cup - I want to play and win a 50-over World Cup before I retire."

Harris, who last played ODI cricket in 2012, has been given a coaching role for an Australia A series later this year and BBL offers are likely to include a coaching component.

The Melbourne Renegades on Friday pulled off the BBL's first trade, luring South Australian batsman Callum Ferguson from the Adelaide Strikers.

And the Heat signed damaging left-handed batsman Nathan Reardon, who will join many of his Queensland teammates in Brisbane after spending the past two seasons with the Strikers.

The Melbourne Stars insist they are yet to sign Kevin Pietersen, but they are raging favourites. His Australian team will hope he proves more popular than he was in the England dressing room during the Ashes debacle.

"I watched every ball of the Sydney Test live, and I've never seen anyone as disinterested or distracted as Kevin; it looked very strange," ECB managing director Paul Downton said. "I talked to every person on the management team and quite a few senior players, and I couldn't find one supporter who wanted Kevin to stay in the side."