Alastair Cook is England ODI captain, Broad has T20 job

[Sachinism]

Alastair Cook has been named England's one-day international captain following the resignation of Andrew Strauss. Cook, 26, has played in only three ODI games since November 2008, leading England's victorious tour of Bangladesh in 2010 when Strauss was rested. Strauss, 34, who has also announced his retirement from one-day internationals, will continue as Test skipper. Stuart Broad, 24, replaces Paul Collingwood as captain of England's Twenty20 side. It is the first time that a nation's Test, ODI and Twenty20 teams will be led by different captains and England team director Andy Flower is buoyed by the prospect. "It has never been tried before so I am excited by the opportunity it provides us with," he said. "We don't know 100% whether it will work and be the most efficient system but we're going to give it a try." Strauss's decision to step down as captain was not unexpected after England's disappointing showing in the recent World Cup in India. The Middlesex opener was arguably England's best batsman in the tournament, highlighted by his ODI career-best 158 in the thrilling tied match with eventual winners India, but his side bowed out in the quarter-finals following a 10-wicket defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka. "The end of the World Cup was a watershed moment and it is time to refresh, regenerate and move forward," said Strauss. "I've enjoyed my time as England one-day captain immensely and I'm extremely proud of the strides we've made in limited overs cricket over the past two years. "In my mind, me starting the process towards the next World Cup and not seeing it through was not in the best interests of the team. Strauss stressed that he remained committed to the Test team though, adding: "I still have a huge amount of drive and determination to take the Test team forward. "Retiring from one-day cricket will also enable me to focus solely on the Test captaincy as we strive to be the top ranked team in world cricket. "I certainly hope to be around to contest the [next] two Ashes series [in 2013 and during the winter of 2013-14]." Essex opener Cook, the Test vice-captain, was the outstanding batsman during the winter's Ashes success in Australia when he scored 766 runs in the series, but he was not included in the squad for the subsequent one-day series against Australia or the World Cup. Despite having played 65 Tests since his debut in 2006, the Essex opener has only featured in 26 ODIs (scoring one century, against India in 2007) and four Twenty20 internationals. However, he impressed as stand-in skipper in Bangladesh last year, scoring 64, 60 and 32 to help win the one-day international series 3-0 and he hit centuries in both Tests to guide England to a 2-0 victory. Nottinghamshire seamer Broad succeeds Durham all-rounder Collingwood, who guided England to a seven-wicket victory over Australia in the ICC World Twenty20 final last May. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/13288262.stm

[Sooda]

Hmm...he barely has any ODI experience, and is not a great ODI bat really is he. But there is no other real contender. Perhaps Broad for both??

[cowboysfan]

A guy who couldnt make it into their WC squad is their captain and they have made the most obnoxious cricketer in the international level their t20 captain,just brilliant.

[Cricket Tragic]

Expected Cook to take over and replace Strauss but Barbie captain? :hysterical: T20 captaincy is pretty useless I guess since you hardly play more than a game or two a series.

[Bradman99]

How can he be the captain when he has only played 3 games in the past 3 years haha and they didn't even select him for the WC. Would of thought they would give it to Swann.

[Feed]

Race to succeed Andrew Strauss as England Test captain starts here More... Stuart Broad v Alastair Cook: race to succeed Andrew Strauss as England Test captain starts here England are not the first country to have three separate captains for each format of the game, but they will be the first to have a tripartite split as deliberate policy. Under pressure: Stuart Broad has show his temper in the past and will now have to make some cool-headed decisions as England's Twenty20 captain Derek Pringle, 05 May 2011 A few months ago Australia were led by Ricky Ponting in Tests, Michael Clarke in 50-over cricket and Cameron White for Twenty20, but that was a brief anomaly while Ponting bided his time before stepping down after his third Ashes defeat, and the subsequent World Cup exit. But what England’s selectors have done is to divest power and that is always a calculated risk even when it is split two ways. The worry about having multiple leaders is that the achievements of one can begin to undermine the authority of the other. Once that starts, the dressing room can become fractured and that is anathema to the team ethic and a cohesive unit. Andrew Strauss, after winning back-to-back Ashes series, has enough respect and kudos to remain unaffected, but Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad have much to prove. That is the risk but Flower is the most calculating coach around and he will have his reasons for doing it. It certainly flies in the face of what some of the England and Wales Board’s senior management were saying a few days ago (“we’ll not be going for the crazy path of having three captains”), but Flower has become highly trusted and if he asked for a swimming pool full of asses’ milk to soak his bowlers’ feet in he would probably get it. Flower probably won’t admit it publicly but with the next World Cup four years away in Australia, it looks as if Cook and Broad are being played off against one another. After all, unification of at least the one-day captaincy would seem to make sense eventually. Cook has been identified as Strauss’s successor as Test captain and the 50-over job is one way of giving him some more experience before that day comes. The only problem with that is he is not a natural one-day batsman despite his muscle-pumping efforts in the gym to increase his hitting power, and he will find the pressure mounts if he is not making runs. He has captained England before, in Bangladesh and in all formats, and to a 100 per cent winning record, but it counted for nought when he was summarily dropped from the shorter formats soon afterwards. The slight galvanised him, though, and he has scored heavily for Essex in one-day cricket. Broad, by contrast, is worth his one-day place but is a bit of a hot-head to be making cool rational decisions on behalf of others while under pressure. Not many pace bowlers make captains for those reasons, but Nasser Hussain was similarly sparky and captaincy was the making of him. Recent injuries to him make his appointment as Tenty20 captain a risky one, but he’s an intelligent cricketer who is always looking to experiment or find an advantage over opponents, and while those qualities do not always help when running the show, they can make for an exciting ride. Anyway, Mr Clean versus Mr Stroppy, for the right to lead England in the 2015 World Cup, begins here. Flower will have to change, becoming more promiscuous in extending his circle of close relationships to include another captain. It will be a challenge, for the trio are hewn from very different substances: Strauss’s aplomb and intelligence being different to Cook’s myopic world view which, in turn, differs from Broad’s adrenalin-fuelled vision. But Flower recently signed an enhanced deal with the ECB, with increased power to cement his vision for English cricket, and maybe having three captains is one way of spreading the stress that can blight all leadership. The move should increase Strauss’s life expectancy in the Test job. Although one of a few England batsmen to have taken their one-day game forward, he was unlikely, with a young family, to have wanted to make himself available for all the one-day cricket scheduled before the next World Cup. At 34, he should be around to defend the next Ashes series in England in 2013 and, if that goes well, the one in Australia a few months later (they have been shifted so that World Cups no longer follow Ashes series). He certainly deserves the chance after England’s near-flawless display in Australia but in Paul Collingwood’s departure, Flower has shown his ruthlessness, and Strauss will have to be scoring runs as well. As one of England’s stalwarts these past six years, Collingwood, who will be 35 later this month, will feel betrayed. As the captain who brought England their first global trophy when they won the World T20 last year, he will be upset he has not been given the slightest chance to defend it. But his decline as a player has been precipitous and while that speed of descent is more commonly associated with fast bowlers, Flower and the selectors have decided to draw a line under him.

[Sachin=GOD]

Barbie as Captain :hehe: Now the Barmy Army will be called the "Barbie Army" :hysterical::hysterical:

[Ramzz]

Barbie as Captain :hehe: Now the Barmy Army will be called the "Barbie Army" :hysterical::hysterical:

:cantstop: and whinie army. Imagine barbies dad being the match referee and barbie being reported by the umpires...that would be fun

[BERGKAMP]

Should have gone with Cook as captain in all three formats. He has got one of the best techniques and tempraments in world cricket, and is a great thinker of the game. Players like Kallis, Dravid, Tendulkar have also shown you don't have to be an out and out slogger to be a success in t20. Cook would do a great job opening and batting through the innings scoring at a strike rate of 100-120 imo. Strauss I think has reached the peak and just letting him concentrate on his batting would do them good. Broad is just a thick little chav and I dont understand his decision at all. I can see this as the start of a down turn in Englands fortunes. 3 captains will just confuse the f**k out of everyone and as soon as one starts doing bad the rumours will begin that one of the others will take his place and it will unsettle them all.

[Rana]

This makes no sense, he is crap at one day cricket. Pietersen or Trott should have got the job!

[cricketlover]

at this rate they might as well anounce a 4 day tour practise matches captain

[Feed]

England's captain complications put Kevin Pietersen in the shade More... England's captain complications put Kevin Pietersen in the shade Andy Flower knows he must carefully manage Kevin Pietersen and his fragile ego after the England batsman was overlooked for the one-day captaincies Andy Bull Sunday 8 May 2011 Kevin Pietersen has been overlooked for England's one-day captaincies, but Andy Flower hopes he still has a major role to play in the side. Photograph: Tom Shaw/Getty Images What is the collective noun for cricket captains? Now England have three of them someone will need to decide. A "complication", perhaps. There are going to be a few of those. High on the list comes Kevin Pietersen. A couple of weeks ago, just before the England and Wales Cricket Board held interviews for the England captaincies, Pietersen made it clear he wanted to lead the one-day team. "I think I could do a real good job," he announced. "If it becomes available I would definitely be up for it." So he may have been, but England were not up for him, preferring to pick two of his juniors, Alastair Cook for 50 overs and Stuart Broad for Twenty20. Not for the first time, Pietersen is going to have to cope with the rejection. As Andy Flower knows. "I think he may be disappointed not to be involved in the leadership team for the next few years," the England coach says. There is a ring of permanency about that phrase "the next few years". Flower is trying to build a leadership group that will last long into the next generation. Pietersen has no place in it. So long as Flower is in charge, his shot at the captaincy has come and gone. When Pietersen had the captaincy taken off him in 2009 he seemed to go through a kind of cricketer's mid-life crisis: his character became more introverted and his batting more inhibited. Flower had first-hand experience of that and knows that his star's ego will require more careful handling this time. That may be why he is so emphatic in his public support for Pietersen now. "I would like to say here and now that I think he will be an integral part of our team in the next few years," Flower says. "I enjoy working with him. I think he is a high-quality cricketer and he can make a significant contribution to our success." Flower knows that Pietersen is an avid reader of his own press. This was as clear a public message as he could make to his player. Especially given that he was equally clear about his dissatisfaction with Pietersen's decision to fly home from the World Cup to have the hernia operation that England had hoped he would postpone until after the tournament was over. Then there have been rumours that Pietersen intends to retire from limited overs cricket so he can spend more time with his family. Such stories are rarely baseless, but Flower scotched them. Judging by what Pietersen has told him in their recent conversations, he will play for England in all three formats and Flower says he has no doubts about Pietersen's dedication to the team. That may be so, but he obviously feels that Pietersen needs to make more of a commitment to realising his own talent. This summer the two best batsmen in the world, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, will come to England. This is the kind of company Flower thinks Pietersen should be keeping. But those mountainous peaks of his early years are a little lower and flatter these days, his numbers a touch more pedestrian. He averaged more than 50 in his first two years in the England team, but under 40 in his past three. "He is an outstanding talent," Flower says. "He could be one of the best, if not the best batsman in the world, and we want him to regain that status. I really want him to fulfil his potential." Tendulkar and Sehwag are both older than Pietersen, and some would say hungrier, too. The mid-life crisis has been followed by a kind of comfortable middle age. His moans about being homesick have become a regular feature on England tours, and nowadays they are accompanied by that talk about the idea of retirement. He is not yet 31. "We all have to finish at some stage and when he looks back on his career I want him to feel proud about what he has done," Flower says. "I want him to feel proud that he has been one of the best batsmen in the world." The implication of that is that if Pietersen quit now, he would not know that satisfaction. The man who would be the best batsmen in the world will make his comeback for Surrey this week against the students of Cambridge MCCU. It will have been a very long time since so many members of the national press descended on Fenner's. They will be running their eyes up and down the Cambridge teamsheet in search of a left‑arm spinner, licking their lips in anticipation of a headline-grabbing boob from Pietersen. Cambridge have one too – his Surrey team-mate Zafar Ansari. Pietersen has been looking sharp and hungry in training, according to Surrey's director of cricket, Chris Adams. Flower and his complication of captains need him to be that way in the middle, too.

[achilles]

Pietersen needs to let his bat do a lot of talking. Not taking anything away from Cook, but Pietersen is in a class of his own.

[Jersey #10]

baby broad is a captain now :haha:

[Texy]

I suspect Chris Broad has a hand in this too

[Crookbond]

I wonder why Eoin Morgan is not the captain in T20. He's a much better and perfect to the T candidate than Broad.

[Junyfan]

I wonder why Eoin Morgan is not the captain in T20. He's a much better and perfect to the T candidate than Broad.

walking wicket against quality spinner.even in t20 he struggled against Hafeez.

[FischerTal]

walking wicket against quality spinner.even in t20 he struggled against Hafeez.

Hafeez bhaijaan just got Central A contract from Pakistan for making Eoin Morgan struggle. :hysterical:

[Crookbond]

walking wicket against quality spinner.even in t20 he struggled against Hafeez.

:blink: So? Clarke should not be made Australian Test captain because he doesn't play Jadeja well. I think this is how Lahori logic works in Lallu land. :giggle:

[Junyfan]

:blink: So? Clarke should not be made Australian Test captain because he doesn't play Jadeja well. I think this is how Lahori logic works in Lallu land. :giggle:

i know t20 fans do not differentiate test cricket of tonty tonty land,but you mentioned in above post about eon morgan t20 captaincy,Mic clarke is one of the best test captain not tonty tonty,which is not real kirkut & the next & (previous) world cup is in bangladash.