GEORGE Bailey has paid tribute to Hampshire after his first season of English county cricket ended early.

The Australian ODI international was expected to return to The Ageas Bowl after the Champions Trophy tournament.

But Sohail Tanvir will be the county’s only overseas player in the forthcoming t20 defence, which starts next week.

That means Bailey, who captained his country in the Champions Trophy due to Michael Clarke’s injury, was deemed surplus to requirements.

He will now be sent on Australia A’s tour of South Africa before returning to England in late August for the ODI series which follows the Ashes contest.

Bailey said he was impressed by the state of the English pitches and also the fact that the amount of games played in an English season helped him not to “over complicate my game”.

“One of the real attractions of playing for Hampshire was to discover first hand exactly what it is that makes nearly every Australian who has ventured over have such a great time,” the 30-year-old batsman remarked.

“Was it the people, the places, the weather or the actual cricket and the counties themselves?

“Within a week of arriving I had answered that question.

“I was warmly welcomed and accepted into a team of wonderful people and I had played a game while it was snowing. Both were enjoyable experiences – well, the snow was interesting anyway!

“The large amount of cricket (in England) means you tend to spend less time training and more time actually playing – or travelling.

“One of the advantages to this was that we spent less time, both individually and as a team, reviewing or dwelling on what had occurred in previous games.

“We would talk about what we had done well and which areas needed work and then launch into the next game.

“Personally I sometimes find in Australia if we have an extended break between games I can over complicate they way I am playing by over analysing past outcomes.

“The Hampshire approach helped me to focus on the things right in front of me and to not worry too much about the little things or to over complicate my game.

“That is something I will endeavour to take home.

“I also thought that on the whole, the wickets were decidedly better that what we have played on in Australia over the last couple of years. “They were balanced wickets that tended to wear quite naturally over the four days.

“The new ball always poses some challenges for batsman and even for this early in the season the wickets deteriorated at an even pace, providing some challenging spin and uneven bounce late in the games.”

Bailey will now prepare for next month’s Australia A tour of South Africa.

Selector Andy Bichel, the former Hampshire overseas player, said yesterday that Bailey will be involved.

“George is going to South Africa and he’s going to be involved for the whole tour,” he stated.

“We want him to play as much cricket as possible now that he isn’t required to return to Hampshire.

“His leadership is going to be very important for the younger players in the squad.”

Australia A’s next game is against Gloucestershire in Bristol later this week, but Clarke is expected to return from a back injury for Australia’s pre-Ashes warm up match against Somerset at Taunton on June 26.