Dane Vilas: Ex-Lancashire captain to retire from county cricket and return to South Africa

Dane Vilas enjoyed many a captain's innings in his four seasons as Lancashire skipper

Dane Vilas is to retire from county cricket at the end of the 2023 season after seven seasons with Lancashire.

The 38-year-old six-times capped former South Africa Test player is to return to his native country to concentrate on T20 cricket.

Vilas, who captained Lancashire for four seasons until 2022, has lost his place in the red-ball side this summer.

"It has been an extremely difficult decision to call time on my county cricket career," said Vilas.

"One that I have thought long and hard about. However, I feel that the end of this season is the right time for me and for my family."

Vilas will now be part of the SA20 league which starts again in January, having played last winter for Paarl Royals alongside Lancs team-mate Jos Buttler and England white-ball opener Jason Roy.

"I have enjoyed a fantastic career," he said. "From making my first-class debut for Gauteng in 2006, to the honour and pride of playing Test cricket for South Africa, before moving to the UK in 2017 to take on a new challenge and making Emirates Old Trafford my home for the last seven seasons.

"It was one of the greatest honours of my career to be named captain of the Red Rose, to lead a brilliant group of players for four seasons."

Dane Vilas has hit almost 8,000 runs for Lancashire in all three forms of the game

Vilas moved to Manchester initially on a Kolpak deal in 2017, before becoming an overseas player in 2021.

He succeeded Liam Livingstone as skipper at the end of the 2018 season, leading the Red Rose back to the County Championship as Division Two champions, a summer in which he hit a career-best 266 at Colwyn Bay against Glamorgan.

Lancs were also County Championship runners-up under him in 2021 and 2022 - and he three times led the Club to Finals Day, in 2018, 2020 and 2022, when they lost off the last ball to Hampshire in the final.

In total, he hit 4,277 runs in 85 first-class matches for Lancashire, in most of which he also kept wicket, as well as hitting 1,494 runs in 85 T20 games.

He has so far scored 1,444 runs in 34 List A games for Lancs, at an average of over 50, including three straight half-centuries in this year's One-Day Cup as the Red Rose look to go one better than last year's experience as beaten finalists.

An outstanding player in Lancashire's recent history

Analysis from BBC Radio Lancashire's Scott Read

To lead by example is a term often used to describe players and captains of all different sports, and a term that absolutely defines Dane Vilas and his time with Lancashire.

He skippered the side to the Second Division title, he took them to T20 Finals day on three occasions and twice they finished runners-up for the County Championship title.

The 2021 season, when he hit the winning runs to beat Hampshire in Lancashire's final match of the season to put them top, only for Warwickshire to win the following day and deny Lancashire the title, would have been his crowning glory.

But the standard he set, the level at which he continued to perform whilst captain and the influence he has had on the club, will be legacy enough.

The county's longest serving captain since Glen Chapple, Vilas is an outstanding player in Lancashire's recent history.