The 2025 English county cricket season begins on 4 April when 18 counties will play across Divisions One and Two of the Rothesay County Championship.

One of the sides with the fewest county titles are Hampshire, who have not been champions since 1973, despite being at the top end of the table in recent years.

And after James Vince decided to opt out of red-ball cricket, the southerners’ hopes may have been diminished.

They will compete against Yorkshire, Sussex, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Durham, Essex, Somerset, and Surrey in Division One, while eight other counties will compete in Division Two.

2024 season

The Rose and Crown finished as runners-up in last year’s County Championship, 17 points behind Surrey, who won the title for the third season in a row.

They lost only one all season, less than every other team including the champions, but six draws in 14 games saw them unable to match the Oval side.

After not winning any of their first five games, they won six of their final nine games to give them hope of catching up to Surrey, but their poor early season form gave them too much to do.

Their only defeat of the season came against the champions, who beat them by an innings and 11 runs in April.

However, they got their revenge four weeks later as they hammered the leaders by an innings and 278 runs, with centuries from Toby Albert, Nick Gubbins and Ben Brown, and five-fors from Kyle Abbott and Felix Organ.

For the fourth season in a row, James Vince was the club’s top-scorer in first-class cricket.

His 986 runs at an average of 49.30 were the eighth-best in Division One and just 30 ahead of teammate Liam Dawson.

The county’s strong bowling attack was also on show as they occupied second and third on the wicket-taking list.

Kyle Abbott took 55 wickets at an average of 20.36, while Dawson took 54 at 25.14.

Only Essex’s Jamie Porter, with 56, took more wickets than them both.

The Metro Bank One Day Cup campaign was satisfactory, if not brilliant.

They snuck out of Group A on net run rate, finishing 0.143 ahead of Derbyshire after both sides won five out of eight games.

However, their run was ended shortly after with a quarter-final defeat to Leicestershire.

Playing away from home at Grace Road, they batted first and scored 290/8 as captain Gubbins hit 136, but despite John Turner’s 4/44 in the Foxes’ innings they fell to a three-wicket defeat.

Gubbins was almost the side’s highest scorer in the competition but was pipped by Ben Brown, whose 286 runs at 35.75 beat him by one run.

Scottish fast bowler Brad Wheal led with the ball, taking 13 wickets at 27.15.

The Vitality Blast produced disappointing results as they failed the qualify for the knockout rounds after being one of the stronger sides in recent years, including winning the tournament in 2022.

Four wins, seven defeats and three abandonments meant they finished in seventh and four points short of a top-four spot.

The batting department struggled as Joe Weatherley top-scored with 324 runs at 36.00 – the 27th most runs in the competition.

Turner was their leading wicket-taker with 15 at 22.26.

Squad

2025 will be the seventh season under the leadership of head coach Adrien Burrell, who joined the county in December 2018.

The 64-year-old South African has won the solitary trophy of the 2022 T20 Blast in his tenure but has seen his side consistently competing towards the top of Division One.

There will be a change in captaincy after James Vince’s decision to only play T20 cricket this season.

The 33-year-old has scored 12,408 runs in first-class matches for the county since his debut in 2009 and captained them in red-ball cricket for the past nine seasons.

He will instead play for Karachi Kings in the Pakistan Super League before returning to captain the Hawks in the T20 Blast.

Wicketkeeper Ben Brown will take over as skipper in the Championship, three years after joining from south coast rivals Sussex.

The 36-year-old has scored 2,613 runs across all formats in that time and captained Sussex for four years.

Nick Gubbins will remain as captain of the 50-over side, a role he has held since 2022.

The top-order batter moved to the Utilita Bowl in 2021 from Middlesex and has scored over 4,000 runs, including 1,393 in List-A games.

They have signed four overseas players to take part at different stages of their season.

Veteran Kyle Abbott signed a new one-year deal at the end of January to stay until the end of this season and will be available for all formats.

They had been set to welcome Australian all-rounder Jack Edwards but he was ruled out recently due to injury so has been replaced by New Zealander Brett Hampton.

The all-rounder will stay until the end of May when the first set of Division One matches are over.

He will then be replaced by young South African duo Lhuan-dre Pretorius and Dewald Brevis.

Both batters will be available for the T20 Blast and the latter may feature in the red-ball campaign as well.

They have also brought in Sonny Baker and Mark Stoneman, who have signed from Somerset and Middlesex respectively.

22-year-old fast bowler Baker has taken 29 wickets across all formats of the game and was recently awarded an England development contract after impressing on the Lions’ winter tour of Australia.

Stoneman is very experienced in the county game, having scored almost 20,000 domestic runs in an 18-year career for Durham, Surrey, Yorkshire and Middlesex.

Last year’s overseas players Mohammad Abbas, Michael Neser and Ben McDermott have all departed the club, with Abbas joining Nottinghamshire.

Seven Hampshire players will take part in The Hundred this summer: Benny Howell, Chris Wood (both Birmingham Phoenix), Liam Dawson (London Spirit), Scott Currie, Sonny Baker (Manchester Originals), James Vince (Southern Brave) and John Turner (Trent Rockets).

Full squad (as of 01/04/25):

Batters – Nick Gubbins (OD captain), James Vince (T20 captain), Toby Albert, Dewald Brevis (O), Fletcha Middleton, Mark Stoneman, Ali Orr, Lhuan-dre Pretorius (O), James Vince

All-rounders – Keith Barker, Liam Dawson, James Fuller, Brett Hampton, Benny Howell, Felix Organ, Tom Prest

Wicketkeepers – Ben Brown (CC captain), Joseph Eckland

Fast bowlers – Kyle Abbott (O), Sonny Baker, Scott Currie, Dominic Kelly, Eddie Jack, John Turner, Brad Wheal, Chris Wood

Overseas Player

South African fast bowler Kyle Abbott is a stalwart of Hampshire CCC.

The 37-year-old will enter his ninth season at the Utilita Bowl, having signed as an overseas player in 2014 and then returning in 2017 as a Kolpak player.

He has not left the south coast since then, having become an overseas player again, and has taken 517 wickets across all competitions for the club.

In his four-year international career, the right-armer played 11 Tests and 28 ODIs, taking 73 wickets overall.

His most memorable moment in the whites of Hampshire was his 17/86 against Somerset in 2019, where he took 9/40 and 8/46 across the two innings to make it the fourth-best County Championship figures ever and tenth-best in all first-class matches.

Kiwi all-rounder Brett Hampton will play in England for the first time in his career, having only played for Northern Districts since making his debut aged 22 in 2014.

The now-33-year-old has played 38 red-ball matches since then and has taken 80 wickets at 27.70 and scored 1,564 runs at 30.66 with two centuries.

In the recent Plunkett Shield, New Zealand’s domestic first-class competition, he was part of the Districts’ title-winning squad and finished as the ninth-highest wicket-taker from all teams (23 at 24.47).

He is yet to be capped by the Black Caps but an impressive spell on the other side of the world from his home country may see him earn an international debut in the near future.

Hampshire’s two South African batters have both impressed in T20 franchise cricket and will both be players to watch in the Blast.

Dewald Brevis, the more experienced one, has played in T20 leagues in his home country, India, the West Indies and the USA.

The 21-year-old broke the record for the fastest 150 in the shortest format in 2022 when batting for the Titans against the Knights, hitting 162 off 57 balls and passing the milestone in just 52 balls.

He has played twice for the Proteas in the format and can also chip in with the ball. He averages 21.27 with his leg spin in T20s so may feature quite frequently as an extra bowling option for Hampshire.

His fellow countryman Lhuan-dre Pretorius is one of the hottest properties currently in T20 cricket after finishing as the SA20’s leading run-scorer at just 18 years old.

The left-handed opening batter scored 397 runs at 33.08 for Paarl Royals with three half-centuries and a strike rate of 166.80, as well as a top score of 97.

Despite his deal not including the Championship, he has also impressed in red-ball cricket and averages 71.25 after just three games and has scored two centuries, including one on debut in December.

Pretorius can also keep wicket and may replace Australian Ben McDermott in that regard as well as taking his opening slot.

Key Player

With the absence of James Vince from their red-ball side, even more responsibility will be placed on Liam Dawson, who has been one of county cricket’s best all-rounders in the past decade.

The 35-year-old scored 956 runs and took 54 wickets last season but was still denied a much-earned recall to the England side after making 20 appearances between 2016 and 2022 across all formats.

He has scored over 14,000 runs and taken 591 wickets for Hampshire since making his debut as a 17-year-old in 2007 and is firmly a modern-day legend for the club.

He will bat in the top six and also bowl a lot of overs, having been the only player across both divisions of the county game to bowl more than 3,000 balls last season.

Dawson’s international hopes may have expired now but he will still hold the aim of winning a first-ever county title with Hampshire in his 19th year on the south coast and will be the most important player in their season.

One to look out for

Another player who will step up in place of Vince is Tom Prest, who scored 582 runs at 48.50 with three centuries in Division One in 2024.

The young middle-order batter missed four games last year but should have a regular spot in the eleven this season due to the gap vacated by Vince in the batting lineup.

He captained England U19s in the 2022 World Cup, where they finished as runners-up, and hit a memorable 181 off 138 balls against Kent in that year’s One Day Cup.

He has a promising average of 36.72 in just 18 red-ball matches and could be one of the young stars of this season’s competition.

The 22-year-old may be in the line to captain the county in the not-too-distant future but will have to show he has the quality and temperament to be a star batter first, and 2025 could be his breakout year.

Prediction

James Vince and Mohammad Abbas will be very big losses to Hampshire’s first-class side after being two of their most important players in recent years.

Whilst still having very high-quality assets in Liam Dawson and Kyle Abbott, they are unlikely to be able to challenge at the very top of the table but will still be hoping to finish in the top four.

However, the departures of experienced performers could threaten them with slipping slightly further down the table.

Despite several players missing the 50-over tournament, they should have a fairly strong side in the competition and will be hoping to reach the quarter-finals again, led by the likes of Gubbins and Prest.

They should improve a lot on last year’s T20 performances with the arrivals of Pretorius and Brevis and will have Vince back in the side.

Progression to the knockout rounds should be the minimum aim and reaching Finals Day is a realistic target.

Hampshire’s county season gets underway on Friday 4 April when they will host Yorkshire at the Utilita Bowl in Southampton.