Brendon McCullum is open to splitting England’s white-ball captaincy and he also did not rule out offering the position to someone currently outside the set-up.
Jos Buttler signed off from the role with a seven-wicket thrashing at the hands of South Africa in Karachi as England ended a miserable Champions Trophy campaign with a third defeat from three matches.
Harry Brook is the overwhelming favourite to succeed Buttler but concerns hang over the Yorkshireman’s workload because of his status as an all-format regular and England’s tightly-packed schedule.
England could lighten the load by putting Brook in charge of the ODI side and appoint a separate T20 skipper, which would leave them with three different captains as Ben Stokes oversees the Test fortunes.
“I’ll work it out over the new few weeks, look at how the structure works and what each side needs,” England head coach McCullum said.
“If it’s the same person, great, if it’s two, that’s great, too. Give me a couple of weeks to work it out and get this thing back on track.”
England have not had three separate captains since Sir Andrew Strauss, Sir Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad led the Test, ODI and T20 sides respectively from May 2011 for just over a year.
While Phil Salt and Liam Livingstone are others with England captaincy experience, the pair’s places in the side are far from settled as McCullum started his white-ball reign with 10 losses in 11 matches.
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v Australia, Lahore - February 22 - Australia won by five wickets
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v Afghanistan, Lahore - February 26 - Afghanistan won by eight runs
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v South Africa, Karachi - March 1 - South Africa won by seven wickets
One other alternative solution is to bring in someone from the cold – Sam Billings and Sam Curran have played for England in the past and have high-profile captaincy experience in T20 franchise leagues.
“Give us a couple of weeks to work it all out, digest what’s happened over the last month and a half and then start we will start to plot and plan our way forward from there,” McCullum said.
England were insipid with the bat against the Proteas, all out for 179, a total that was easily knocked off inside 30 overs thanks to Rassie van der Dussen’s 72 not out and Heinrich Klaasen’s 64.
It was a seventh successive ODI defeat, equalling their worst run since 2006, as England failed to win a single match in the group stage of a major tournament for the first time in their history.
“We’re really disappointed with how we performed in this tournament and we’ve got to put our hands up and acknowledge it wasn’t good enough,” McCullum added.
“We had high hopes of finishing the tournament with a bit of a bang but we were very poor and we’ve got a lot of work to do. It’s definitely the only way is up – that’s the attitude you’ve got to have.”
While McCullum intends to head home to New Zealand before holding discussions with director of men’s cricket Rob Key about the team’s future, Buttler is set to fit back into the ODI and T20 rank and file.
“There is no doubt that the talent is there, there is all the makings of a really good side so I do believe it can be turned around,” Buttler said at the presentation ceremony.
“I’m sure Brendon and the guys at the top will formulate some plans and then it’s down to individuals to put a marker down and be part of something to get the team back to where it should be.”
