WILL Smith hopes he has the Hampshire four-day captaincy for the long-term - because it will mean James Vince is an England regular.

But Smith, who led Durham to the 2009 County Championship title, is not looking beyond the next match against Nottinghamshire, his other former county, which starts at The Ageas Bowl tomorrow.

The 33 year-old said: “It’s a nice challenge, and it comes in good circumstances, because Vincey has a good chance to show how good player he can become for England.

“Hopefully he’s away for a long period of time because that will mean he’s done really well.

“I’ll be looking to carry on the good work started by Jimmy when we won the division two title [in 2014] and carried on by Vincey when he led us to safety last season.”

Smith has scored 2,161 first-class runs at 39.29 since joining Hampshire in 2014, including a career-best aggregate of 1,187 at 51.6 in his promotion-winning first season, when his economical off-spin helped Hampshire reach T20 Finals Day - and win him Players’ Player of the Year.

He also averages 42.6 with the bat in the 50-over Cup.

“I’ve loved my time here so far and I feel I’ve contributed in all three forms,” he said.

“I’m proud such a prestigious club has seen fit to trust me with this responsibility.”

Smith was replaced as Durham captain by Phil Mustard when the captaincy started to affect his form.

But although he has not been at his best so far this year (115 runs at 16.42), he made 45 in his last innings against Lancashire and Hampshire coach Dale Benkenstein, his former Durham teammate, is backing him to come good.

Benkenstein said: “I pushed for Smudge to take over the Durham captaincy from me, he has the right character for the role.

"His form’s a little bit of a concern but he’s only a good innings away from coming good.”

Sharing the captaincy with Sean Ervine, Hampshire’s new limited-overs skipper, will help relieve the burden.

“It’s hard work to do all three, not many counties have an out-and-out captain and, with all the experience he has, giving Slug the limited-overs captaincy was a no-brainer,” said Smith, who is aiming for a first win of the season against Notts over the next four days.

“We were outplayed by a full strength and ruthless Lancashire side but even in that game we had periods where we were on top and that’s been the case in all the games we’ve played so far,” he said.

“We just have to make sure that those positions are not as few and far between and reactionary. But we’ve also shown real resilience at times.”

Hampshire (from): Carberry, Adams, Dawson, Smith, Ervine, Wheater, McLaren, Andrew, Best, Crane, Tomlinson, Wheal, Alsop.