James Vince believes that the ECB's new policy on No-Objection Certificates (NOCs) is inadvertently driving players away from first-class cricket and towards the franchise T20 circuit. Vince, who stepped down as Hampshire's club captain last week, will not play in the County Championship this year and expects "more and more" English players to follow suit.
Vince's decision was primarily informed by family reasons: after unexplained attacks on their home in Hampshire last year, his family - his wife, Amy, and their two young children - are relocating to Dubai. The move made playing in the Championship impractical, not least because playing the full English domestic season would have significant tax implications.
But it was also a necessary step in order for him to be granted an NOC for the Pakistan Super League by the ECB, following changes in the board's policy in late November. While designed to "protect" English competitions, according to chief executive Richard Gould, the details went down poorly with players and the threat of legal action continues to linger in some cases.
"When they first mentioned it, a WhatsApp group of players was created and there was a lot of discussion," Vince tells ESPNcricinfo from Dubai. "The initial feeling was that it was going to drive people away from red-ball cricket. It felt like it was going to limit opportunities. Players were frustrated by it… There were a few things in there that [we] didn't really understand."
A scheduling pile-up has pushed the PSL back into an April-May window for 2025, clashing with both the IPL and the start of the county season. Vince, retained on a six-figure contract by Karachi Kings, is among six English players with deals and believes that number would have been significantly higher if not for franchises' fears about their availability.
Vince is the fifth of those players to have signed a white-ball county contract, while Tom Kohler-Cadmore is set to renegotiate his Somerset deal along similar lines. Some players have privately expressed their frustrations that the IPL is being treated as an outlier, with English players granted NOCs for that tournament regardless of their contractual situation.
"That's a big one that has caused a lot of confusion," Vince said. "It's got to be something to do with relationships between the ECB, PCB and BCCI as to why they've come up with that rule. The PSL's a shorter competition, so if you're going to play in that, you're probably missing less domestic cricket than if you're going to the IPL… It just didn't seem right.
"There's more and more opportunities for guys to play white-ball cricket and earn decent money during our domestic season… You're talking quite large sums of money in terms of what they forego by playing red-ball cricket. Particularly further down their careers, when there's a big difference in those numbers, I'm sure more and more people will go down that route."
Vince will be a significant loss not only to Hampshire, but to the Championship as a whole: he has played 197 first-class games for his county across 15 years, captained them 92 times, and led them to three consecutive top-three finishes. He insists he is not "officially retired" from red-ball cricket but, turning 34 in May, his career in the format is likely over.
He has also come to terms with the end of his international career, two years on from the most recent of his 55 appearances for his country. "I'd say it's probably pretty much done," Vince concedes. "There's no point announcing your retirement when you're not playing for England, but in my head I've kind of moved on from the possibility.
"It's certainly not something where, when squads get announced, I'm looking at my phone expecting someone to call me. I had a taste of it, which was good; I obviously would have liked to have done better and played more for England but as that hasn't worked out, I'm trying to make the most of my career."
It will be April when Vince's decision sinks in, when Hampshire start their season against Yorkshire without their long-serving captain. "When I'm there in Pakistan, no doubt I'll flick the live stream on and be looking at the scorecards. That's when it'll really hit home that something I've been involved in for the last 15 years, all of a sudden I'm not… It'll be a strange feeling."
But he will return at the end of May to captain them in the Blast, and says Hampshire have been "very supportive" since his stable family life was upended last year. The Vinces have been living in hotels for nine months after two attacks on their home, which they have now sold, but will soon relocate to Dubai where they hope to resume "a fairly normal life".
"The instances themselves were fairly scary," Vince recalls. "It was people causing damage, smashing windows and stuff as opposed to actually coming into the house. The police said straightaway it looked like a threat of some sort… We haven't had concrete information of exactly what happened, but we've got a fair idea that it wasn't intended for us.
"It was pretty scary. It was more as the man of the house, making sure the kids and Amy weren't affected by it was my main priority… We sat down as a family and tried to make a plan going forwards, left the UK in mid-October, came away for a month in Dubai before the Abu Dhabi T10 and the Big Bash, and took the time to do a bit of exploring the option of moving across here."
They hope to have the keys to their new home by the end of the ILT20, where Vince is captaining Gulf Giants for the third year in a row. It will leave him with a short break before the PSL starts in April to reflect on the most turbulent year of his life, one which culminated in the major career decision Hampshire announced last week.
"My wife and the kids are quite excited about the prospect of living over here. We don't really have a timeframe on how long that'll be. If we like it, it could be indefinitely; if, after a couple of years, we feel it's not for us, then I guess we've got the option to move back to the UK. It's a case of taking it step by step and seeing where it leads us."