London – January 3 (ONLINE): Ben Stokes has thrown his support behind Joe Root’s England cricket captaincy, claiming he has no aspiration to replace him in the top job.
When Root leads the side out in Sydney on Wednesday he will become the longest-serving Test skipper in the country’s history, overtaking predecessor Sir Alastair Cook’s previous record of 59 matches.
But any sense of pride in that achievement will be tempered by the fact that, for the third time, he has just led an unsuccessful Ashes campaign. After a 4-0 defeat in 2017/18 and a 2-2 draw at home in 2019, he now finds his side 3-0 down and hoping simply to avert a whitewash.
After four and a half years in the job, it would hardly be classed as a radical move if either Root or his employers decided it was time for a change.
Neither party has given any indication that they are about to pull the trigger on such a move and now vice-captain Stokes, by any reckoning the only obvious replacement, has distanced himself from any talk of succession planning.
He has led the Test team once before, in a losing cause against the West Indies when Root was at the birth of his second child, but does not covet the role.
“I’ve never really had an ambition to be a captain,” he said, addressing the speculation.
“Captaincy is more than about setting fields, picking the team, making decisions out there in the middle. A captain is someone you want to go out and play for. Joe Root is someone I always want to play for.
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