<\/p>\n
As England\u2019s men scatter for the Hundred, ready to pull on new colours, ingratiate themselves with their new paymasters and use the word \u201cexciting\u201d repeatedly, the management above them could be forgiven for letting out a sigh of relief.<\/p>\n
Not that everything is shipshape going into their month-long recess. Far from it. Test cricket is king in this country, No 1 across all age groups and demographics \u2013 as per Richard Gould, chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket<\/a> Board, in his Ashes review in March \u2013 and in that regard the first half of the season still goes down as a bit of a shambles.<\/p>\n The 2-1 defeat by New Zealand forced the removal of Brendon McCullum<\/a> from one half of his role as head coach, while a strung out Ben Stokes threw himself overboard into retirement and was last seen playing for Durham against Northumberland in front of 300 people at Allendale Cricket Club. Three Tests on from Gould and Rob Key insisting the status quo with just a bit more rigour was the way forward, the team have no coach, no captain.<\/p>\n But the T20<\/a> and ODI series<\/a> victories, against an India side at No 1 in the rankings for both, should not to be sniffed at. McCullum\u2019s retention for the limited-over teams was not universally popular but over the past year he and Harry Brook really do seem to have struck upon something as a leadership pairing.<\/p>\n India admittedly chose to reset their world champion T20 side and a one-sided 4-0 defeat showed they swung the pendulum too far. But England\u2019s 2-1 victory in the one-dayers displayed some serious gumption from 1-0 down, the wins in Cardiff and Lord\u2019s equally hard fought but achieved in wildly contrasting conditions.<\/p>\n Cardiff was a low-scoring dog-fight that owed plenty to the enduring class of Joe Root<\/a>, whereas Lord\u2019s was a high-scoring gunfight on an unusually flat pitch. That England found a way in both \u2013 even if Jasprit Bumrah\u2019s asbence from the series decider was a bonus \u2013 said a lot about the variety they have cultivated.<\/p>\n For all that England are playing catch-up before the 2027 World Cup after a few years of 50-over neglect, Brook leads a side with bases covered. His batting lineup has touch players, power players, and left-right combinations. Brook also had eight varied bowling options at Lord\u2019s: three quicks, wrist-spin, a left-arm angle, two better than part-time off-spinners and Jacob Bethell tweaking it the other way.<\/p>\n Brook\u2019s use of Bethell in particular goes back to the chemistry struck with McCullum, having run off the field mid-innings for advice and been told that a spinner driving the ball into the surface \u00e0 la Ravindra Jadeja was the play. The wicket this produced of Rohit Sharma on 138 was game-changing.<\/p>\n Although, this is where things get tricky and we circle back to the strange place that England find themselves. Because for all that white-ball success has mildly offset the anger caused by the Test team\u2019s further nosedive, it risks baking in a divide that may be hard to square when the vacancies for Test coach and captain are filled.<\/p>\n Right now, England seemingly have only two options for captain. One is Root, who would be doing it out of a sense of duty rather than any desire, and the other is Brook himself. Neither is ideal, while both would need strong guidance on tactics and leadership from the new coach: Root because he did previously \u2013 and never quite received it \u2013 and Brook because everything would be new to him.<\/p>\n In an ideal world, Stokes would have held the role until the 2027 Ashes, by which time Brook\u2019s education as vice-captain would have been greater and he could slide across post-World Cup. This is far from an ideal world, however, and for all that his early appointment would invite questions about his maturity on and off the field, a personal view is that he is the correct, forward-looking choice.<\/p>\n But as well as the burden that a three-format captaincy would place on Brook, can doing this under two separate coaches work in practice? Whoever is tasked with nursing Brook through the early stages of the Test role, they will need a strong alignment with McCullum so as not to overwhelm him with conflicting methods.<\/p>\n
\n