Does Ben Stokes have what it takes to be a great cricket captain?

Durham was the last county to be given first-class status and admitted to the County Championship, and the appointment of Ben Stokes as England’s captain means that once again, every county has provided a captain for the Test team.

Offhand I can’t think which has supplied most, though what used to be known as “Lords influence” suggests the answer may be Middlesex. Durham had already provided a white-ball England captain in the utterly admirable Paul Collingwood and fielded a former England Test skipper Ian Botham in the evening of his remarkable career.

Still, Stokes is Durham’s first, even though the county’s loyal supporters get very little chance of seeing him in action in the Championship. But this, alas, is the way it is now. I haven’t done the sums, but I would guess that Joe Root played more Test matches in 2021 than he has played Championship games in the last five summers.

This has been the case since central contracts were introduced, and a select group of players were employed first by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), only secondly by their counties.

Consequently, the England management decides when should be made available to their counties. This is bad for County cricket, and there is little evidence that it has been good for the Test team. Certainly, England’s recent record doesn’t suggest that central contracts have been a great success.

Be that as it may, the appointment of Stokes as captain comes as a relief, given some of the other names canvassed. He has admittedly little captaincy experience. This need not matter. England’s most successful decade of my lifetime was the 1950s.

Neither of the two captains who never lost a series between 1952 and 1958-9 — a run which included Ashes victories in 1953, 1954-5 and 1956— were county captains; Len Hutton, because he was a professional and it was still thought desirable that counties, even Yorkshire, should be captained by an amateur, and Peter May because he came into a Surrey team led by the tough exuberant businessman Stuart Surridge who remained in charge even while May captained England.

Stokes has a challenge to meet, and it is not made easier by the fact that his own recent form has been disappointing. He had a poor Ashes series in Australia and, apart from one century, an indifferent one in the West Indies.

Nevertheless, given that Root has wisely stepped aside, there was no sensible alternative. He has begun well by calling for the return of James Anderson and Stuart Broad.

Their omission from the West Indies tour may not have been misguided but was undoubtedly mishandled. It might, more sensibly, have been said that they were being rested with an eye to a demanding summer with Test matches against New Zealand and India, both of whom have recently beaten England.

Admittedly, given their age — Anderson rising forty, Broad already in the second half of the thirties — there is the question of whether they can still be expected to lead the attack and, more pertinently, whether they should be played together. How many overs can either be expected to bowl?

How much support will be needed from other fast or fast-medium bowlers if both play? How much can, or should, Stokes bowl himself? Who else should help form the attack? Will either Josh Archer or Mark Wood, our two genuine and proven fast bowlers, be fit? What of Ollie Robinson, named as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year?

He did well last summer and in the first couple of tests in Australia. Then there were questions about his application and fitness, and he was only a spectator in the West Indies. Will there be a place for Chris Woakes, so often good in English conditions but so poor abroad?

And what of Sam Curran, the most talented all-rounder under the age of twenty-five, who is currently recovering from that fashionable complaint, a stress fracture in the back, possibly caused by the ill-advised demand that he should bowl faster than is natural for him.

Questions, questions, questions. One can hope only that the search for an answer doesn’t lead yet again to the selection of a Test side without a full-time spinner so that the slow -bowling is entrusted to part-time spinners, Joe Root or even Dan Lawrence.

Still, it’s the batting that has been letting England down. Openers come and go through a rapidly revolving door. The most talented young batsman in the country is Ollie Pope, who makes runs for fun for Surrey but had a miserable Test year, a wretched time in Australia and was left out of all three Tests in the West Indies.

England would look -and be-a very different side if he could reproduce his county form in Test matches -will, I would rather say when he does. England can’t go another year relying on Joe Root to carry the burden. 

The old adage has it that “bowlers win matches”. So indeed they do. You usually need to take twenty wickets to win a Test. It is equally true however that batsmen lose matches, and this has been England’s case for too long now.

In the old days before central contracts — days when there were fewer Tests and people, played county cricket between Test matches — a batsman could return to his county and play himself back into form. Now the poor blighters are denied this opportunity. Tough.

If Ben Stokes as captain can turn things around it might be a minor miracle. No matter, an interesting summer awaits. If it could be a successful one, even better.