JIMMY Adams admits he would prefer not to captain Hampshire in the T20 Blast.

Adams is Hampshire’s LV County Championship skipper but has only captained the county once in a domestic T20 match – and does not want to do so for a whole season.

He was undecided whether to continue as captain at all towards the end of a difficult 2013 campaign.

Back-to-back wins in the last two games and the subsequent signings of Matt Coles and Will Smith made continuing as captain for a third term in the Championship a relatively easy decision in the end.

But the retirement of Dimi Mascarenhas, Hampshire’s T20 captain for the last two seasons, leaves the county without a designated leader in the shortest format.

“That’s something we’ve got to work out,” said Adams, who will discuss Hampshire’s T20 captaincy options with director of cricket Giles White and first-team coach Dale Benkenstein during the county’s pre-season Barbados trip, which starts next week.

“Chalks, Benky and myself will come up with something, we’ll make sure we have that covered,” continued Adams.

“You never know how things pan out, the club may feel it would be a good thing for me to do both jobs but, ideally, I would stick to the same as last year.”

Smith captained Durham’s T20 side in 2009 and is an option while Liam Dawson, a former England U19 captain, is a future Hampshire skipper.

Michael Carberry and Sean Ervine would also be considered. But there is no obvious replacement if Hampshire decide to continue with a specialist T20 captain.

T20 begins earlier than ever this season with Glamorgan’s visit on May 16 the start of the T20 Blast, the rebranded domestic competition which will see most games played on Friday nights, with the group stage lasting two months instead of one.

“I’ll reserve judgement on the new format for now,” said Adams. “A lot of cricket is being squeezed in but, fingers crossed, it will be a draw for the supporters.”

The start of the new-look competition clashes with the IPL and the doubling of its duration makes it harder to sign two quality overseas players, making the additions of Kyle Abbott and Glenn Maxwell even more impressive.

“We feel we’ve recruited pretty well,” said Adams, who is looking forward to working with Benkenstein, who begins his career at Hampshire in the Caribbean next week.

“He’ll be a great asset for us,” added Adams. “We’re lucky to have him. If we hadn’t got him he’d have been headhunted by another county.

“He’s been seen as a high-potential coach for a while and I’m sure he’ll be even more highly regarded down the line. This is the start of a great career for him.”

Hampshire’s two-and-a-half weeks in Barbados includes several friendlies after next week’s three T20 internationals between England and the West Indies; a one-day game against Derbyshire (Bridgetown, March 15) followed by a T20 competition against Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire and Derbyshire and two two-day matches against Warwickshire (Windward CC, March 18/19) and Notts (Carlton CC, March 21/22).

Chris Wood is the only player not travelling as he recovers from microfracture surgery on his right knee.