London, March 7 (HS): England cricket team managing director Rob Key believes that it would be foolish not to consider handing over the ODI captaincy to Ben Stokes. 2019 World Cup champions England are going through another bad ICC tournament, where the team was eliminated in the group stage of the 2025 Champions Trophy without winning a single match.
After this, captain Jos Buttler stepped down, which now challenges the England cricket management to take an important decision to shape the future of the team. Stokes, who is 33 years old, has been an inspirational player in England cricket and played a big role by being part of the teams that won both the white-ball World Cup titles at one time.
However, he retired from the ODI format after the 2023 World Cup. He had hinted at playing in the 2025 Champions Trophy, but this was not possible due to a hamstring injury suffered during the Test series against New Zealand.
Rob Key said in a statement on Thursday, Ben Stokes is one of the best captains I have seen. So it would be wrong to ignore him. It depends on what impact it will have. We are considering every option and seeing which decision will be the best. He further said, Stokes is a great strategist, as we have seen in Test cricket, but he is also a leader who inspires people. When the pressure is high, he handles the team and inspires them to move in the right direction. These are the traits a good captain should have. But we also have to pay attention to his workload, so that his availability in any other format is not affected.
Stokes has formed a successful partnership with Test captain Brendon McCullum. McCullum was appointed England’s white-ball format coach this year, but under his leadership, England has lost 10 out of 11 limited-overs matches so far. Rob Key said that given the similarity between Test and ODI cricket, the pair of Stokes and McCullum can prove beneficial in the ODI format as well. Citing the example of India, he said that T20 specialists dominate there, but the backbone of the ODI team is the Test players.
He said, I think Test and ODI cricket have now come closer, while T20 has now become like a different format. In India too, new players are coming in T20 cricket, but in ODIs, Test players are the strength of the team.
Apart from this, Key also expressed confidence in the captaincy ability of young batsman Harry Brook and said that Stokes’ presence can enhance his leadership skills. 26-year-old Brook is considered the future captain of England and he also captained the England ODI team in the absence of Butler against Australia last year.
Key said, I think Harry Brook can become a great captain. I had some doubts about Ben Stokes’ captaincy earlier, but the way he has led is commendable. Stokes’ presence can also be beneficial for Brook, because additional responsibility improves the performance of many players.
Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar
