'He is going to give everything' - Former cricketers back Ben Stokes to replace Joe Root as England Test skipper

Former England veteran cricketers Michael Vaughan and Michael Atherton have named star all-rounder Ben Stokes as an ideal candidate to replace former skipper Joe Root as England’s Test captain. To note, Root ended his five-year tenure as the Test captain on April 15 (Friday), saying the job had taken a heavy toll on him recently after their poor performances in Australia and West Indies.

The England Cricket Board (ECB) are yet to name the new skipper. However, Stokes is being considered to be the first preference. The 30-year old has played in 79 Test matches and amassed 5061 runs at an average of 35.89. He has stroked 26 half-centuries and 11 hundreds. With the ball, the right-arm pacer has scalped 174 wickets at an average of 32.13.

Stokes has got a smart cricket brain: Michael Vaughan

In a conversation with BBC, former England skipper Vaughan said, “I don’t see anyone else who could take the position and be guaranteed of their place in the side. In Ben Stokes, you have clearly got someone who has got a smart cricket brain, he’s going to give it everything, he is certainly going to have the respect of the players around him.”

Former skipper Michael Atherton also backed the left-handed all-rounder stating he was the “obvious” replacement for Root. Meanwhile, Nasser Hussain also gave his opinion on the matter. He said that ECB should sit down with Stokes and look him in the eye and find where he is.

“You have to be in a good place mentally and physically to do the job – and Ben has had his problems away from the field. “Whoever the new director of cricket is, the first thing they must do is … sit down with Stokes, look him in the eye and find out where he is,” Hussain wrote in his Daily Mail column.

Ben Stokes took an indefinite break from cricket in July to focus on his mental health while also recovering from a second operation on a broken finger, but returned to the England squad for the Ashes series.