Rob Key could offer Ben Stokes the chance to take on the captaincy of England’s one-day team – and potentially put Harry Brook in charge of the T20 side – after admitting it would be “stupid” not to consider his Test talisman for an expanded role.
Speaking at Lord’s on Thursday, less than a week after England completed their winless Champions Trophy campaign, the director of men’s cricket held his hands up to “a lot of errors”. There was also an admission his players lacked the competitiveness that Stokes brings.
While stressing he is “not feeling the pinch” as regards his own role, Key and his head coach, Brendon McCullum, face a pivotal decision over how best to replace Jos Buttler as white-ball captain.
With 11 Tests, 27 white-ball matches and a T20 World Cup in the next 12 months, picking one multi-format player raises inherent issues. But much like McCullum last week, Key insisted “nothing is off the table”. This includes asking Stokes, 33, to set in motion a template for the 50-over World Cup in South Africa in 2027, allowing the 26-year-old Brook to cut his teeth with the T20 side initially. As ever, much will hinge on fitness, with Stokes currently on track for the summer after hamstring surgery. The all-rounder has already opted out of the Hundred this year.
“Ben Stokes is one of the best captains I have ever seen,” Key said. “So it would be stupid not to look at him. It’s just the knock-on effect of what that means.
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“He is an unbelievably good tactician, which we’ve seen in Test cricket, but he’s also a leader of men. He is someone who gets the best out of people. He’s someone that, when the pressure is really on, he is able to throw a blanket around the players and say: ‘No, no, this is the way forward. Keep going with it.’
“It’s more about, what would that then mean to him? What would that mean to his workload? We don’t want to risk other things as well. But there’s always a way in England where you start [thinking]: ‘What if it goes wrong?’ You’ve also got to think: ‘What if it goes right?’ I’m just looking for the best person, really.”
Key insisted the decision would not be rushed and, while he talked up Brook’s credentials, the temptation to ask more of Stokes is obvious: despite early success in the 2022 T20 World Cup – Buttler’s captaincy highlight – the Test team’s record of 22 wins and 12 losses since Stokes was appointed captain three years ago makes it by far the best performing of the three sides. Key stressed that Test and 50-over cricket are more closely aligned, with T20 now the “outlier”.
By the same token, the 4-1 Test series defeat in India 12 months ago, the failed defence of the 50-over World Cup in India and this latest no-show in Pakistan all highlight how, regardless of format, England remain poor in Asia. Expecting fresh leadership to deliver fresh results in that part of the world would be ignoring deeper issues.
The attempt to hit the Champions Trophy with pace backfired and Key accepted the lack of a second frontline spinner was flawed. Liam Dawson will enter the thinking for the next T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka and India, Key said, even if the 35-year-old would be a “short-term” move that still requires long-term husbandry of new spinners.
England’s strategy in Pakistan was based on being over-par with the bat, but losing seven of their eight games in India during the buildup left players short on confidence come two critical phases of the group stage: their sub-par first innings against Australia, then the failed run chase against Afghanistan that should have been reeled in.
Key defended McCullum’s perceived mantra of “go harder”, insisting the New Zealander’s outlook is far more nuanced. There was an acceptance of poor decision-making out in the middle, however, while Joe Root, Steve Smith and Virat Kohli were held up here as prime examples of the sport’s best “problem solvers”.
“The bottom line is, we have to get better and better in the subcontinent,” Key said. “We’ve done the same thing – and that’s my fault – where we’ve gone in there with the same sort of make-up of an attack for the last however many years. We didn’t win in India with Eoin Morgan’s team. We’ve got to start sorting out those issues.
“They’re actually trying to concentrate so hard that they end up making mistakes. Sometimes they’re reckless. Sometimes they make the wrong decision at the wrong time. But that’s the game. It’s not that we think you go out there and play one way.”
Engaging brains when speaking publicly is another area Key is keen to address. Ben Duckett claiming he “did not care” about losing 3-0 in the ODI series against India if England won the Champions Trophy was jumped upon slightly unfairly by social media; Liam Livingstone’s strange assertion that England deserved to beat Australia in Lahore less so.
“We have to get better at interviews. We speak a lot of rubbish, a lot of the time,” Key said. “There’s not a world in which the players don’t care or they don’t want to go and get big scores. They are trying so hard, they are walking a fine balance of trying to give insight into what is going on in the dressing room, the things that are being said.”
