Australian Big Bash League trip next for James Vince after Covid-19 scuppers chances of Pakistan T20 silverware

The Hampshire captain has again been signed up by the Sydney Sixers ahead of the 10th staging of the Australian Big Bash League.

The BBL is the second biggest T20 league in world cricket, behind the Indian Premier League, and Vince knows the joy of winning it.

He was part of the Sixers side that lifted the silverware earlier this year - his first T20 title since helping Hampshire win the Blast in 2010 and 2012.

Vince scored just two in last season’s BBL final, a rain-ruined Duckworth Lewis Method win against the Melbourne Stars.

The 29-year-old was second highest runscorer for Sixers in the tournament with 323 at 23.07, behind opening partner and wicket-keeper Josh Phillipe (487).

In all, Vince was the fourth highest-scoring overseas player behind England trio Alex Hales (576, Sydney Thunder), Liam Livingstone (425, Perth Scorchers) and Phil Salt (361, Adelaide Strikers).

He was the second Hampshire batsman to win the BBL - his former Ageas Bowl colleague Michael Carberry having helped Perch Scorchers triumph in 2014/15.

The Sixers’ first game of their defence takes place against the Hobart Hurricanes on December 10.

That will be Vince’s first competitive game since Hampshire’s dismal T20 Blast season concluded at the end of September.

He had been due to take part in the Pakistan Super League play-offs at the weekend, but returned a positive Covid-19 result. Though he was reported to be asymptomatic, he was still legally forced to self-isolate for 10 days from the date of the positive test.

Vince scored 155 runs in five innings before the PSL was cut short by the pandemic in March.

Multan topped the qualifying group table, but failed to reach the final after suffering a double defeat.

With a side including four ex-Hampshire players, they lost their first eliminator in a Super Over against Karachi Kings last Saturdayy. Under the tournament rules, as group winners, they then took on Lahore Qalanders in a second attempt to reach the final the following dau - but they lost again, this time by 25 runs.

Rilee Roussow, Shahid Afridi, Imran Tahir and Sohail Tanvir all played in both losses, while Yorkshire’s Adam Lyth was a late replacement for Vince, top scoring with 50 in the loss to Lahore.

Lahore were facing Karachi in the final today, with the former’s pace attack due to be led by Shaheen Shah Afridi.

The 20-year-old Afridi is the leading wicket-taker in the tournament, with 17 victims at 17.70.

He went straight from playing for Pakistan in a three-game ODI series against Zimbabwe - he bagged 5-49 in the first match - to returning to PSL action.

Afridi has enjoyed an impressive few weeks of T20 action.

He finished off an otherwise forgettable time at Hampshire by rewriting the county’s record books in his final Blast game against Middlesex on September 20.

He claimed the final four wickets in successive deliveries - the first time such a feat had been achieved in the English game - to finish with 6-19, the best T20 figures in Hampshire’s history.

Afridi then went straight into his country’s domestic T20 series, finishing as the leading wicket-taker - with 20 at 14.90 - as Kyber Pakhtunkhwa lifted the title.

Remarkably, Afridi twice took five wickets in a game - 5-20 against Baluchistan and 5-21 against Sindh.

That meant, in the space of just 16 days, Afridi had played in five T20 matches and astonishingly taken five wickets in two of them and six in another!

For comparison’s sake, West Indian Dwayne Bravo - the leading wicket-taker in T20 history with 512 victims - has only even taken five wickets in a game twice in 471 matches.

Meanwhile, it is no surprise that Vince has been signed by the Sixers again, as his record in the shortest form of the game is exceptional.

In 218 visits to the crease, he has scored 5,833 runs at 29.76 with 653 boundaries, 145 sixes and a strike rate of 132.83.

He is the sixth highest-scoring Englishman in T20 history - and the 42nd highest-scorer among all players.

The only five Englishmen to have scored more runs are Jos Buttler (6,230 @ 30.99), Eoin Morgan (6,841 @ 27.58), Ravi Bopara (7,235 @ 27.61), Hales (7,351 @ 29.76) and Luke Wright (7,999 @ 29.08).

In 2019 Vince scored the most T20 runs - 1,390 - of any English-qualified batsman in a calendar year.

He made 47 visits to the crease for Auckland, England, Hampshire, Multan Sultans, Paarl Rocks and Sydney Sixers and averaged 33.90.

That is the 10th highest calendar year aggregate in history, and the only players to have scored more are T20 royalty - Chris Gayle (three times), Virat Kohli, Babar Azam, AB de Villiers, Colin Munro, Brendan McCullum and Kieron Pollard.

But despite all those impressive stats, he has still only won 12 international T20 caps for his country and was left out of the England squad – including the list of reserves - which will play South Africa in a three-game series starting at the end of this month.

In 225 T20 matches, Vince has scored just one century, an unbeaten 107 in Hampshire’s 2015 Blast quarter-final victory at Worcester.

That was the summer where he compiled a new record 710 Blast runs in a season - a record which still stands.

Prior to his Worcester ton, Vince had been left stranded on 99 not out in a group win against Kent and he also hit an undefeated 90 against Sussex at Hove.

He had also shown his liking for a pressure-cooker atmosphere in the 2014 Blast quarter-final win against Nottinghamshire, hitting an unbeaten 93.

This will be Vince’s third BBL spell, as he also scored 75 runs in three innings for Sydney Thunder in 2017/18.

He is one of 13 Englishmen who have been signed by the eight Australian franchises for BBL 10.

Tom Curran has been retained by the Sixers, after appearing in 14 of their 16 matches in 2019/20, while Somerset pair Tom Banton and Lewis Gregory have been signed by Brisbane Heat. Essex’s Dan Lawrence will deputise when Banton is on England duty.

Will Jacks and Dawid Malan are with the Hobart Hurricanes, Jonny Bairstow has been signed by the Melbourne Stars, and Liam Livingstone, Jason Roy and Joe Clarke are in the Perth Scorchers squad.

Roy and Livingstone will miss the first couple of games on England duty, so Clarke will deputise.

Hales and Sam Billings have been signed by Sydney Thunder.

Rossouw - very much a T20 gun for hire - will play for Melbourne Renegades while Sixers also have ex-Ageas Bowl overseas players Dan Christian and Jackson Bird.