Three jobs? Stokes takes them all on

FOR most of the 12 years he has spent as a first-class cricketer, since word first began to spread of his prodigious allround feats for Durham, the prospect of Ben Stokes becoming England Test captain had seemed fairly remote.

As a genuine all-rounder, there was the glaringly obvious danger of compromising the team’s most important player with too much responsibility, a painful lesson England had learnt from the brief captaincy stints of two similarly charismatic allrounders, Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff. There was also the waywardness that had created disciplinary problems: sent home from an England Lions tour in 2013 and then cleared of affray after a brawl outside a Bristol nightclub four years later.

Over the course of that 12year career, Stokes has been captain in only one of his 156 first-class matches, a four-wicket Test defeat by West Indies at Southampton in 2020.

But times change, the hotheadedness of youth cools with age and Stokes was back at Durham’s Riverside ground this week setting out a plan to revive England’s Test fortunes and to prove that his appointment as Joe Root’s successor is not the gamble that some perceive it to be.

For a start, he has opted to shift himself down the order to No.6, one place lower than he has been batting for much of the past three and a half years.

This is not so much to ease his workload as to maximise his chances of excelling as a fully fledged all-rounder.

There had been suggestions that Stokes may evolve into more of a batsman who bowls, particularly after the knee injury that flared up during the recent Test series in the Caribbean, but he intends to continue performing with both bat and ball.

“I know that I’m at my best for England when I’m doing both (roles) as much as (each) other,” he said. “I feel that going back to No.6 is going to allow me to concentrate on those roles, rather than worrying about one whilst doing the other. I feel that’s best for the team.”

At the same time, he recognises that his all-round workload, with the additional burden of captaincy, will have to be carefully monitored.

“That’s something I’m going to have to really focus on,” he said. “I’ve got great senior players around me, it would be stupid and naive of me not to include them in decisions out on the field.

“It’s something I thought I managed very well in my Test (as captain) against West Indies. I asked Jos (Buttler) a lot, and Jos said to me a couple of times, ‘You need to come on here.’ That’s an example of me using other people to help me. But I’ve always gone with my gut, it’s served me quite well. I’ll continue to do that going forward in my captaincy.”