LONDON: World Cup winner James Vince is to stand down as captain of Hampshire after a decade in charge and move to Dubai following attacks on his family home, the English cricket county announced on Wednesday.
Although he will miss the 2025 English domestic first-class County Championship or red-ball season, Vince will continue to play white-ball (limited-overs) cricket and skipper Hampshire in the T20 Blast.
The 33-year-old batsman, a member of the England squad that won the 2019 50-over World Cup on home soil, saw his family home near Hampshire’s headquarters attacked twice last year.
Vince, who said the incidents left his young family fearing for their safety, told Britain’s Daily Telegraph in July he believed the attacks were a case of mistaken identity.
“James Vince has signed a revision to the final year of his contract which fulfils his obligation to play for Hampshire Hawks in the 2025 Vitality Blast campaign and confirms that he is not planning to play red-ball cricket this year,” said a Hampshire statement.
“After 10 consecutive years as club captain, Vince will also step down from this position but will remain as team captain of Hampshire Hawks.
“In 2024, Vince endured a challenging year on a personal level, following several attacks on his family home. As a result, the family have taken the decision to move to Dubai.”
Vince added he needed to “understand what is best for my family, and combine that with the stage of my career I am at”.
He made his Hampshire debut in 2009 aged 18 and has scored over 22,000 runs for the county. Vince is the Blast’s all-time leading run scorer and has played in Hampshire’s three title-winning T20 teams, while representing England 55 times across all formats.
Vince has also been retained by Karachi Kings for this season’s Pakistan Super League T20 tournament on a contract worth a reported 100,000 ($122,000).
The PSL has made a one-off move from its usual February-March slot to take place between April 8 and May 19, the same time as the first half of the County Championship.
English cricket chiefs have introduced rules preventing England-contracted players or red-ball county players from appearing in overseas leagues such as the PSL that take place during the English season, with the exception of the Indian Premier League, cricket’s wealthiest T20 franchise tournament.
But the policy appears to have helped persuade Vince, who won the last of his 13 Test caps in 2018, to abandon English first-class cricket, at least temporarily, rather than reject a lucrative PSL deal.
Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2025
