England veteran James Vince explained his reasons behind the decision to skip first-class cricket in 2025 for Hampshire after finding himself in the middle of a strife with the England and Wales Cricket Baord (ECB) over the Non-Objection Certificate to part-take in the Pakistan Super League (PSL).

Vince was retained by the Karachi Kings before the PSL 2025 draft for a six-figure contract, no less. However, since the 2025 edition of the PSL has moved into the April-May window because of the tight schedules, it is clashing with the IPL and the start of the summer of English cricket.

The ECB had denied issuing NOCs to the players participating in leagues that clash with the international and domestic home summer, apart from the IPL. However, Vince, who was on an all-format contract with Hampshire decided to skip the red-ball tournament for the period from April 8 to May 19 while calling out the ECB for preferring IPL over PSL despite the latter having a shorter window.

"That's a big one [ECB not denying NOCs for IPL but doing it for PSL] that has caused a lot of confusion," Vince told ESPNCricinfo. "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 that why IPL and not the PSL? 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," Vince added.

"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 further said while mentioning that had the PSL franchises not feared potentially losing out players due to the NOC issue, a few more English players would have been signed on to play the 10th season of the tournament.

Tom Curran, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Sam Billings, Chris Jordan and David Willey are the other five players set to play in the PSL. Apart from Vince, Kohler-Cadmore was also on the all-format contract and is likely to take the similar route as the senior pro.

Karachi Kings squad for PSL 2025: Adam Milne, David Warner and Mohammad Abbas Afridi (all Platinum), Hasan Ali and James Vince, Khushdil Shah (all Diamond), Aamir Jamal, Muhammad Irfan Khan and Shan Masood (all Gold), Arafat Minhas (Brand Ambassador), Litton Das, Mir Hamza, Tim Seifert and Zahid Mehmood (all Silver), Fawad Ali and Riazullah (Emerging), Kane Williamson, Mohammad Nabi, Omair Bin Yousuf, Mirza Mamoon (all Supplementary)