Brendon McCullum is open to the concept of three England men’s captains – and possibly even appointing one from outside the current setup – as he attempts to revive the white-ball teams and ensure a winter of misery does not bleed into the Test side.
Signing off from the Champions Trophy with a seven-wicket shellacking at the hands of South Africa – a seventh successive one-day-international defeat – McCullum admitted England were poor in “all facets of the game” and lessons needed to be learned. His review will also mean identifying a successor to Jos Buttler as white-ball captain.
Related: Jos Buttler’s England reign ends in painful defeat by South Africa
Harry Brook, the vice-captain, has endured a tough start to the year and, as a three-format cricketer, his stepping up could leave the 26-year-old overburdened. Other candidates may not even be in the squad that has flopped, with McCullum ruling nothing out when asked about proven domestic leaders such as Sam Billings, Sam Curran and James Vince.
“If it is the same person [for ODIs and Twenty20], great, if it’s two, that’s great too,” said the head coach, who has struck up a strong alliance with Ben Stokes in the Test setup. “Give me a couple of weeks to work it out and get this thing back on track.”
The notion of three captains – last occurring between 2011 and 2012 when Andrew Strauss (Tests), Alastair Cook (ODIs) and Stuart Broad (T20s) were briefly a triumvirate – would be a messy one. It would cut across McCullum’s belief that the best cricketers should be able to transfer across squads, with England’s schedule now starting to ease.
In that respect McCullum was unrepentant about merging the 50-over team with the more successful Test side for this Champions Trophy, noting that Joe Root (225 runs) and Ben Duckett (227) were England’s two highest scorers. The same went for banking on high pace in the bowling attack at the expense of greater variety, even if this failed.
Related: McCullum’s challenge now is to find more than just a new England captain | Ali Martin
“We may not have got it totally right this time but you’ve got to have conviction in something,” said the New Zealander, when asked about the strategy that went awry. “We’ve got to put our hands up and acknowledge it wasn’t good enough.
“We’re a little further down the road with [the Test team]. It’s not hard to see this is a slightly different task and we’ve got to put plans in place for the demands of white-ball.
“But I still have tremendous confidence in the talent that is across English cricket, not just in the dressing room right now, but also guys around the domestic scene at the moment or have played for England before. We’ve got to find ways to make sure that our team walks out there a lot more confident than we are at the moment.”
On Buttler, who has no intention to retire from international cricket, McCullum added: “We still see him as a big player within that and he’s still got a huge role to play. But it will be an exciting time for the new captain to put their stamp on it.”
