Long-term future for England not as well planned for as possible?
It’ll be a very sad day for English cricket when Eoin Morgan decides to step down from his duties as one day captain. Even though he is likely to captain England to the next two T20 World Cups, and he has hinted towards a possible world cup retention campaign in 2023. His name will go down in history as England’s first World Cup winning captain, as well as being England’s most capped ODI player and current leading run scorer.
Morgan has been fantastic as England captain, inheriting the team from Alistair Cook two months out from England’s shambolic 2015 World Cup campaign. He, and newly appointed Director of Cricket, Andrew Strauss changed England’s one day philosophy to all out aggression, leading England to set and break their own record of highest team One Day score. The aggressive style of cricket played was enough to roll over India in the group stage and Australia in the semi finals of the latest World Cup. Delivering England’s first World Cup was a great uniting of backgrounds across the country (and beyond), he was quoted after the final after speaking to Adil Rashid, that “We had Allah on our side”.
The man next to Morgan this whole time is Jos Buttler, being named England’s vice captain for the 2015 World Cup at only 24 years old, ahead of then T20 captain Stuart Broad, as well as stalwarts such as James Anderson and Ian Bell. He led England to a 2-1 series win over Bangladesh in 2016, after captain Morgan chose not to go over security fears. He was given the position of VC after a personal recommendation by Morgan, and came back into England’s test match side in 2018 after an impressive IPL season, and was named vice captain of that format immediately, although it had been passed around since Ben Stokes lost it after that one night in Bristol, who has since been reinstated as test vice captain before the 2019 Ashes series.
Buttler has always been tipped for success at the international level. He was named 2010 Young Wisden Schools Cricketer the year after finishing the 2009 season with 554 runs and a call up to the Champions League T20 squad for Somerset, and was tipped to be a future England test captain in 2017 by future Chairman of Selectors, Ed Smith. At the point of being named England’s vice captain, Buttler had played 20 tests sporadically over a 4 year period, with no centuries to his name. He went on to get his only one to date in that series, although it happened when he came in at 62-4 chasing 521 in the 4th innings – the game all but over.
In white ball cricket he is feared as one of the most aggressive and talented strikers in the world. Being used to bat 6 and below, he is generally used as a finisher to an innings, where sometimes he isn’t given the time to impact a game. He came in in the 24th over of the world cup final and batted 21 overs with Ben Stokes for 110 runs, showing he is not just a one trick pony. His talent is shown by him holding the record for the fastest One Day century for England, and 3 of the top 5. He is a fantastic role model for the game, he is well spoken (Vernon Philander excluded) and keeps himself well out of the public eye outside of cricket. A fantastic fit for the top brass, he has had many people speak out about how good his cricket brain is, including Joe Root when he was announced test vice captain.
However, sometimes a player’s brilliance is captured in their freedom to play the game. Some of England’s most talented players have made less than successful captains, with Botham being replaced during the 1981 Ashes, before going on to win the series and for it to be dubbed “Botham’s ashes”. Another player who struggled with the pressure of captaincy was Andrew Flintoff, England’s clutch player in the 2005 Ashes and old gunslinger in the 2009 series, he suffered massively in 2006/07 series down under, overseeing a 5-0 whitewash. It could be thought that Buttler may struggle to continue his form if he were given the responsibility, although the Bangladesh series says otherwise, 145 runs in 3 games as captain, alongside 6 dismissals with the gloves.
A problem of being an all-format playing cricketer now, as well as a captain is the risk of burn out, Eoin Morgan has become a white ball specialist, having made sporadic first class appearances for Middlesex over the past few years, former one day captain Alistair Cook retired from white ball cricket with the stripping of captaincy, and focused on only being a red ball player, this meant he got 4 more years of test cricket, and he is still going for Essex in the county championship. Buttler is still backed to an all format cricketer for England, still picked for the non-starting test series against Sri Lanka, even though he has averaged 23 across 25 innings in tests for England since the start of 2019.
The specialisation of captains leads me to my pick to become Eoin Morgan’s successor. I believe this man should be the new vice captain and should solely focus on being a white ball only player for England. That man is Moeen Ali. He has been a very successful captain for Worcestershire in the T20 format, having led them to the last two finals, and winning the 2018 tournament. He has led a relatively inexperienced team with a smattering of experience throughout, including Martin Guptill and Wayne Parnell. Young players such as Joe Clarke, Ben Cox, Ed Barnard and Pat Brown have all been paramount to the teams success, and they have been wonderfully marshalled by Ali. Ali stepped away from cricket briefly last summer after the first Ashes test, citing burn out of playing too much cricket. He stepped away, and hasn’t played any test matches for England since, but came back into the England fold for the one day games against South Africa and performed well with the bat and ball.
Due to the amount of cricket he has played in the past years, I think Moeen would be best suited to prioritise the white ball game for his future, where he is able to go abroad and play franchise cricket around the world, and to not worry about the red ball format. Whilst not being the most spritely at 32, I think now is a good time for Moeen to move toward one format of cricket and to focus on being England’s next white ball captain. It would be incredible for England to have its first practising Muslim captain, and Moeen is a great person to have take over the mantle from Eoin Morgan whenever he feels he’s ready to step away from the role.
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