John Crawley skippered Hampshire for the first time yesterday - after insisting that he is not worried about not having a vice captain.

The Crawley-Paul Terry era began with the start of the two-day pre season friendly against Somerset at the Rose Bowl.

But Hampshire will enter the new season at Worcester on April 18 in the unprecedented position of not having a vice captain to fill the void if injury or England duty limit Crawley's availability.

Crawley, pictured above, and Terry will replace the old style, five-man selection committee but in not naming a deputy, the danger for Hampshire is that they may inadvertently create an on field 'captaincy committee'.

Someone will be needed to make the final decision when Crawley is not playing and that role could be given to any one of half a dozen players.

Former Lancashire captain Crawley, 31, said: "When the job was offered to me at nets on Thursday morning I accepted immediately.

"I've always viewed the position as something I shouldn't search for, but it's a real honour when it comes your way.

"My only concern was that I might be away with England for a period of time if I play well but there are plenty of other people with captaincy experience.

"I don't know Simon Katich off the field but he's obviously a very fine player and has had experience of captaining New South Wales, Will Kendall has done the job quite a bit before and Shaun Udal is very experienced as well."

First team manager Paul Terry offered the job to Wasim Akram a week ago, but the former Pakistan skipper tuned the job down.

Terry said: "I didn't really think of John initially because of his experiences in the past and England but in chatting with him two or three weeks ago his keenness to actually do the job came out, he started to become a real choice.

"We'll be selecting the teams together and I'm here to help John and the players as much as I can, but once the players cross the white line John has full responsibility."

Wasim and Katich are likely stop-gaps, depending on how long they have had to settle in when Crawley is first unavailable.

Crawley is not one of the nine contracted players but if he is an ever present in the Test side this summer he could miss seven championship and seven one-day games for Hampshire.

Terry added: "There is a strong possibility that John will be away with England and we want to see him do that but it doesn't concern me, we were aware of that situation when we made the decision.

"We'll assess that situation when it arises. The season is likely to have time to unfold by the time we have to make a decision on that and we've got some pretty good people who can fill in - there are three or four other players who have captained before.

"Will Kendall will be one of those considered and the two overseas players will have settled into the club by then and could become available."

Not having a vice captain will help trim the selection committee from five to two.

Last year former coach Jimmy Cook, second XI coach Tony Middleton, vice captain Kendall, director of cricket Tim Tremlett and captain Robin Smith made the decisions but now it will be down to Crawley and Terry.

Terry added: "I've been in meetings before that should take ten minutes but take an hour and a half, you can have too many thoughts from too many places. We will be discussing the team with Tony Middleton but having two people will streamline the whole operation."

Wasim Akram was due to meet his new Hampshire teammates today after having to pull out of Pakistan's double wicket semi-final in St Lucia at the weekend because of an injury to Shahid Afridi.