{"id":500200,"date":"2026-03-28T14:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T14:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/500200\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T14:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T14:23:13","slug":"peter-handscomb-leicestershire-captain-to-miss-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/500200\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Handscomb: Leicestershire captain to miss 2026 season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leicestershire&#8217;s promotion-winning captain Peter Handscomb has been ruled out of the new season because family commitments will keep him in Australia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Handscomb skippered the Foxes to the County Championship Division Two title last summer as they returned to the top tier for the first time since 2003.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But the 34-year-old Australia international will not feature this season \u2013 although he continues in the role of club captain and has agreed a deal to return to Grace Road in 2027.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Handscomb, who had previous spells in county cricket with Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Durham and Middlesex, said: &#8220;It&#8217;s difficult to miss the season, but family must take priority. I&#8217;m grateful for the club&#8217;s understanding and support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m honoured to remain club captain and I&#8217;m excited to return in 2027. I&#8217;ll be following the lads closely and fully believe in what this group can achieve.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leicestershire, who will launch their Division One campaign at home to Sussex on Friday, are yet to announce who will lead the team in Handscomb&#8217;s absence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">All-rounder Ian Holland deputised for the final three games of last season when Handscomb returned to Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leicestershire&#8217;s promotion-winning captain Peter Handscomb has been ruled out of the new season because family commitments will keep&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-500200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}