Ben Stokes is the latest entrant in the race for becoming the new England captain following Jos Buttler’s exit. The keeper-batter decided to step down from captaincy following the team’s miserable campaign in the Champions Trophy. While head coach Brendon McCullum had hinted that England may appoint separate captains for ODIs and T20Is, now the team’s managing director Rob Key has dropped another hint on the their potential choice.
Ben Stokes to be England captain?
Speaking to reporters, Key said that it would be stupid for England to not consider Stokes as an option for white-ball captaincy. The Test skipper, who last played an ODI in 2023, was open to playing in the Champions Trophy but suffered a hamstring injury just before the tournament. Heaping praise on Stokes as a tactician, Key explained that making Ben the captain would also hinges on how his workload will be managed.
“Ben Stokes is one of the best captains I’ve ever seen. So it would be stupid not to look at him. It’s just the knock-on effect of what that means. Ben’s, as we know, an outstanding player, an outstanding leader. It’s more about, what would that then mean to him? What would that then mean to his workload?,” Key said.
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Key wants England to take a leaf out of India’s book, going forward. He pointed out that while India’s T20I side had many young and fresh faces, it was their veterans from Tests who did well in ODI. He backed Stokes, their Test captain, to lead the team in ODIs as the formats were closer compared to T20Is.
“When you start looking at it, I believe that Test cricket and 50-over cricket are probably closer than T20s, which is the outlier now. So then that makes different things. We look at India and the way they play T20 cricket, and they’ve got all these young players coming through, but it’s their Test players that are making the difference in 50-over cricket,” Key added.
