My advice to Ben? Trust your instinct and enjoy it

I will send Ben Stokes a message this morning to tell him to enjoy the best day of his life. Walking out at Lord’s to captain your country for the first time is something you never forget.

My first week as Test captain was at Lord’s in 2003. It was rushed on me a bit after Nasser Hussain’s resignation, and I was all over the place. I did not quite know how to deal with it.

Ben has had a bit more time to prepare for it because it was announced a few weeks ago that he would be captain. He has been part of the build-up to this week and had plenty of time to come to terms with it.

There will be a decent amount of people in at 10.25am when he emerges from the pavilion for the toss. I hope his family are there to see him walk down the stairs.

It is an incredible moment. You walk 60 or 70 yards out to the middle to be greeted by the media, dignitaries, match referee and a few players, because they always hang around for the toss.

It is a bit surreal. You cannot bottle the feeling and let someone else taste it. You have to taste it yourself. All those who have done it will echo what

I am saying. It is the greatest feeling in the game to toss the coin and lead your country in a Test match.

I did not get any advice, apart from to just win the toss. I lost it and South Africa beat us by an innings, so Ben cannot really do any worse.

It is hard to give a new England captain advice. There is no absolute right way of being the captain. There are many ways. The only thing I will say is, try to be forthright and instinctive.

I know he has a lot of empathy with the players and that is a good start. My old saying is “manage the person and not the player”. If you do that, you will do pretty well.

The tough moments will be if at lunch on day one, England are 50 for three. That will not be Ben’s fault but it is up to him to create the vibe and spirit this week so the players are in a state of mind to cope with the occasion.

We will have to wait and see how the Stokes-brendon Mccullum combination works, but you get the sense these could be quite good times for the England team – partly because they cannot get any worse.

Getting off to a good start is Ben’s challenge. It is all positive at the moment, with a lot of exciting new appointments. Rob Key, the managing director of England cricket, has started well.

In an exclusive interview for Telegraph Sport’s new cricket podcast – “The Vaughany and Tuffers Cricket Club” – he laid out his ideas for English cricket. He is the right character to put English Test cricket back on track.

Rob is well respected by the players but at times will need an iron fist, and that will be his challenge. He has always been popular and nice. Has he got it in himself to be ruthless?

In management, it is not about having mates, it is about making the right decisions for the team. He said on our podcast that he was sure Eoin Morgan would make the right decision for English cricket about when it is the right time to step aside. But sometimes you have to make that decision.

Rob’s skill and instinct is to know when is the right time. For example, he might have to knock on Jimmy Anderson’s door and tell him his time is up. Like in all management roles, how you hire and fire is the test.

New Zealand are rusty because they have not played a great deal of cricket, so England might catch them at the right time. Make the most of it. England have played a lot more red-ball cricket than New Zealand but this Kiwi team are a very hard, well-drilled, professional and disciplined unit. It will not be easy. It will not take long for them to find the rhythm of playing Test cricket, so England must catch them cold with good, hard, disciplined cricket.

People do not like to use the word “weak” these days but the England Test team have been weak at times over the past two or three years and I just want to see a bit of toughness from them, as well as them reading the game and situations better.

Do not panic if you lose a wicket. That has been a real problem for this team. How do you stop that? By playing strong, disciplined cricket.

England will need a bit of luck. So far they have not had much, because there are not many bowlers who are fit. It is very hard to win Test matches against better teams when you do not have many bowlers, so they are due a bit of good fortune this week, which would be a good start.