"It Would Be Stupid..." - Rob Key On Ben Stokes As England's Next ODI Captain

England's managing director Rob Key feels it would be “stupid” not to consider Ben Stokes for the ODI captaincy after Jos Buttler resigned from the post after England’s disappointing performance in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025. Buttler and his men lost all their three games in the 50-over event. In fact, England have eight defeats in their last nine ODIs.

Now that Buttler is gone, England need a new white-ball captain, and Key feels Stokes could be the man to lift England’s fortunes in limited-overs cricket. Test captain Stokes has formed a successful relationship with Brendon McCullum, who is now also England’s white-ball coach. They have won 22 of their 35 Tests together.

Stokes hasn’t played an ODI since the 2023 World Cup in India, where he came out of retirement after having decided to leave the format in 2022. Stokes was also open to featuring in the Champions Trophy but was ruled out after suffering a hamstring tear.

"I think nothing's off the table really. You look at every single option and you think, right, what is the best thing to do? How is that going to impact on other things? Ben Stokes is one of the best captains I've ever seen. So it would be stupid not to look at him. It's just the knock-on effect of what that means,” said Key.

"He's an unbelievably good tactician, which we've seen in Test cricket, but he's a leader of men. He's someone who gets the best out of people. He's someone that, when the pressure is really on, he's able to throw a blanket around the players and actually say, 'no, no, this is the way forward. Keep going with it'.

"They're the qualities that you need in leadership. Ben's, as we know, an outstanding player, an outstanding leader. It's more about, what would that then mean to him? What would that then mean to his workload?

"We don't want to risk other things as well. But there's always a way in England, I think, where you start looking at, 'what if it goes wrong?' You've also got to think, 'what if it goes right?'. They're the decisions that I have to make."

Head coach McCullum is open to having three different captains for three formats, but Key feels England can easily have the same man in charge of the Test and ODI set-ups. "When you start looking at it, I believe that Test cricket and 50-over cricket are probably closer than T20s, which is the outlier now. So then that makes different things.

"We look at India and the way they play T20 cricket, and they've got all these young players coming through, but it's their Test players that are making the difference in 50-over cricket."

Talking about how Stokes could help Harry Brook develop his leadership skills, Key said: "I think Harry Brook would be an outstanding captain actually. I was cautious about Ben Stokes doing it and having too much, and look how that's gone.

"I think he (Stokes) might bring out the best in Harry Brook. Being able to go out there and feel like the extra responsibility sometimes ,for people, is the best thing that can happen for them. Sometimes it's not. They're the decisions you have to work out."