England cricket team left rudderless as skipper departs with series loss to New Zealand

Ben Stokes has insisted he is not considering a comeback for next year’s Ashes and reckons he will watch the action “from a hospitality booth”.

Following his retirement, England’s Test team look ready to head to the hospital, leaderless, rudderless and with captains past and present arguing about the future. Their next attempt to retrieve the vase is now less than 12 months away.

Stokes, for his part, began the post-mortem by arguing that assistant Harry Brook should have replaced him as captain, despite the youngster’s many behavioral problems off the field and a succession of ridiculous shots.

“There’s a reason he was asked to be the vice-captain of this team,” Stokes said. “With all the controversy over the last few weeks, I know decisions were made. They were decisions that I was not a part of making. You were asked to be vice-captain for a reason and I was vice-captain under Joe.” [Root] for a long time. This is a natural progression; If the captain is not there, you step forward.

“There’s absolutely no reason why Harry shouldn’t be asked to do that. You wouldn’t ask someone to be vice-captain if you don’t think he has the skills and ability to captain the team. If I were asked who I thought should do it, I’d give my 100 per cent support to Harry Brook.”

At the same time, Stokes gave less than lukewarm support to coach Brendon McCullum and team director Rob Key, insisting that the new captain should have a say in how team management looks.

“What Ben, Brendon and Rob have managed to do over four and a half years, I’m not going to lie, it’s been an interesting journey,” Stokes said. “We’ve had incredible highs and pretty low lows. It’s always worked out and tied in pretty well in terms of what we wanted to achieve. It doesn’t always work out the way you want it to.”

“Brendon and I were very clear about what we wanted to do when we first took over. It’s going to be no different for whoever comes next. Both the captain and the coach need to come together, put their minds together and believe in what they’re trying to do going forward. Whoever it is, that’s the way it has to be.”

As a commentator, former captain Mike Atherton declared Bazball dead where it all began, as New Zealand completed an important 2-1 series win in Nottingham. Don’t write Times Atherton later made it clear that he did not think Brook was fit for the captain’s job.

Atherton wrote that “Stokes threw his weight fully behind Brook as captain, but it is difficult to understand why.” “Brook should have been sacked in the winter after the night before the last ODI in Wellington and much of what has happened since can be attributed to the lack of stronger action then. Is he really the right man to lead the Test team? Nothing we have seen suggests that, but undoubtedly the available alternatives are poor.”

“Brook’s scatterbrained nine-ball innings on the fourth evening hardly resembled that of a man ready to step up as captain.”

Meanwhile, Michael Vaughan, not only a former captain but also a member of the same management team as Stokes, has set his sights on Key and McCullum and argued that now is the time for a complete change.

The defeat to New Zealand was England’s first defeat at home since 2012 and their first defeat to New Zealand in the United Kingdom since 1999. They now sit seventh in the World Test Championship table, ahead only of Pakistan and the West Indies, and have never challenged (or respected) the title.

“Enough is enough,” Vaughan wrote Telegram. “It is now time for a full clean-up with the involvement of coach Brendon McCullum and director of cricket Rob Key.

“I can no longer stand to watch English cricket being so wasteful. As a former captain, I can’t watch us play like this against a New Zealand team sunk to the bone by injury and the retirement of Kane Williamson.”

Atherton and Vaughan recommended Andy Flower return as coach, at least for the Test side. But McCullum appears determined to keep the job and the lucrative contract, which runs until the end of 2027.

He said the project is not completed yet. “My passion and commitment to English cricket has never wavered.”

But McCullum admitted he made an unsuccessful attempt to get Stokes to reconsider his decision. McCullum was also hesitant to confirm Brook as England captain, meaning the job could go back to former player Root.

“I didn’t have any success. You know Ben,” McCullum said. “We’ve had a lot of conversations lately, so I felt like something was coming. But when he caught me on the floor yesterday and said, ‘Baz, I’m done,’ I said, ‘Slow down, don’t make any rash decisions right now.’ He said, ‘I’m glad.’ We sat in silence for 10 to 15 seconds and I said I was a little sorry.”

The spectacle that accompanied Stokes’ retirement, and the flare-up of reckless batting that soon handed the series to New Zealand, was called out by another former captain, Andrew Strauss.

Strauss wrote: “I am not convinced that everything was planned correctly.” LinkedIn. “For a team struggling to avoid series defeat, this looks like a major distraction and the cricket in the final session had quite an ‘end of term’ feel.

“Everyone has the right to bow out on their own terms and no one deserved it more than Ben, but making a pre- or post-match statement seems like the more logical approach. When you’re in the middle of a match, the only thing that matters is the team’s performance.”

Stokes claimed England’s role as the saviors of Test cricket and even described them as “a sporting team that will live on forever in the memory of those who were lucky enough to witness us play cricket”. But on the final day at Trent Bridge, the ground was about a third full despite free entry. By the time Stokes spoke for the last time as captain at the post-match presentation, even those few stalwarts were almost gone.

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