A managed Ben Stokes can light the fire under England’s Test team
The search is over and there was no need for a photo finish or an umpire’s review. Ben Stokes is England cricket’s 81st captain of the men’s Test team in a race that only ever had one starter. Just a month after Joe Root resigned from the position, it was always likely that Stokes would pick up the tarnished baton.
The 30-year-old, New Zealand-born Stokes is no stranger to the England set-up. He had been vice-captain of the Test side across two spells in the last five years and earlier this year passed 5,000 runs in the red-ball format.
But the captaincy seems to be a poisoned chalice and goes hand in hand with a head coach position that’s equally arduous. So what can Stokes, the as-yet-unchosen head coach and the England and Wales Cricket Board do to ensure the new captain can revitalise a severely underperforming Test team?
Stokes and T20
Twenty20 cricket is the fun uncle of the sport, its short, sharp bursts often attracting enticing wage packages, the chance to travel the world and a platform to show off.
Stokes is no stranger to the format having played for the Melbourne Renegades and Rajasthan Royals, among others.
But Stokes’s schedule needs to be managed, quite simply. He will have to significantly reduce his T20 playing minutes, as Root did, and prioritise Test cricket and the tactical nous that goes with it.
He almost brings a T20 game to his Test batting but sometimes in the future that will not be enough.
Bowled him
New managing director Rob Key said yesterday that one of Stokes’s first moves will be to reintroduce Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson into the Test fold after Sir Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood left the pair out for the tour to the Caribbean.
With a combined age of 74, the duo have taken more than 1,100 wickets between them and can undoubtedly still be decisive figures for England.
Test cricket is a never ending project, it is always evolving and developing, and England need to move on from the pair at some point.
That said, it would do very little damage to have the twosome involved in the summer in senior leadership roles to play their part in preparing the next breed of England seamer.
And that’s the point Stokes should be making: bring back the level headed players he trusts to advise and help him nurture the new breed of English talent.