Ben Stokes has been dropped from England’s squad for the second Test against New Zealand for breaking curfew, leading to a shock return to captaincy for Joe Root ahead of Harry Brook.
Test captain Stokes has been stood down from the squad pending an investigation into his and Gus Atkinson’s conduct in the early hours of Monday morning after England’s win at Lord’s.
In his absence, the team’s elder statesman Root has been charged with taking over as interim captain over vice-captain Brook.
He is expected to retain the captaincy for the third Test at Trent Bridge, with a return date for Stokes unclear. But if the investigation into Stokes’s behaviour is concluded, he is not suspended and considered in the right frame of mind, there is an outside chance he could be back in Nottingham on June 25.
At 35, Root will lead the side four years after he resigned, broken by the burden of the job following one win in his last 17 Tests.
He returned to the ranks under Stokes and has shown the finest form of his career. Root led England in a record 64 Tests between 2017 and 2022, but the prospect of him doing the job again seemed non-existent.
He will do it on an interim basis ahead of vice-captain Brook, who was himself embroiled in a late-night incident that led to the introduction of a drinking code of conduct.
The curfew was only brought back by England, with the strong support of Stokes, after it emerged at the end of a boozy Ashes tour that Brook had been punched by a bouncer in the early hours before captaining the ODI side in Wellington in November. Brook was fined the maximum amount and put on a final warning, but he was not sacked or banned from any matches. England hushed the incident up, until Telegraph Sport revealed it in the hours after the final Ashes Test was lost in Sydney, confirming a 4-1 series defeat.
Stokes became one of the first players to breach that curfew. After England went 1-0 up in the series against New Zealand, he and Atkinson stayed out after midnight, when it is understood Saracens academy rugby player Totoa Auvaa aimed a punch at Atkinson, missed, and instead left England’s security guard James Shaw requiring stitches.
England have left Stokes and Atkinson out for the second Test at the Oval, which starts on Wednesday, and Rob Key, the director of cricket, will address the media on the matter on Thursday morning.
Stokes is at home in the North East, and met his management on Wednesday to discuss his future. He has pondered retiring from England duty altogether in the wake of an incident that initially left him devastated, and is weighing up whether he wants to continue as captain, more than four years into his tenure.
In a column for Telegraph Sport, Michael Vaughan, the former captain, threw his support behind Stokes’s captaincy. He wrote: “Yes, Ben Stokes broke a curfew. Yes, he made a mistake. But is that a sacking offence as England’s Test captain? I don’t think so.”
Steve Harmison, the former England fast bowler, was determined that Stokes should not step down.
“He’s one of the best captains we’ve ever had,” Harmison said on TalkSport. “To lose him because he’s stayed out after 12 o’clock – the world has gone mad.”
Having replaced him as captain, England’s next issue is replacing Stokes’s all-round ability. In his and Atkinson’s absence, Jofra Archer returns to the squad for the second Test, having missed Lord’s because he was having a break in Barbados after the Indian Premier League (IPL). He returns to the country on Thursday and, if ready, could replace Atkinson with the new ball. Sonny Baker and Matthew Fisher, who both played in this week’s drawn County Championship match between Surrey and Hampshire at the Oval, are candidates to come into the seam attack, too.
There is also a place for Jordan Cox, the Essex batsman, who has twice been injured when in squads previously. Having been warming the bench at the IPL, Cox has not played a first-class match for almost 10 months. He beats Dan Lawrence, who scored his fifth century of the season for Surrey on Tuesday, to a place in the squad.
Cox is behind the uncapped James Rew and all-rounder Rehan Ahmed in the pecking order to replace Stokes, though. Stokes’s absence is bad news for Shoaib Bashir, who did not bowl an over at Lord’s and may be sacrificed in a rebalanced side. England must decide if they need a spinner at all at the Oval, where pitches have been green but flat this summer. With Chris Woakes retired, the only realistic all-round option who could have replaced Stokes is Sam Curran, who is not fit to bowl as he recovers from injury.
It is a reminder of the difficulty England will have trying to replace Stokes when he retires, especially as there is little prospect of them unearthing a world-class spinner such as Graeme Swann, who allowed them to bridge the years between their last world-class all-rounder, Andrew Flintoff, and Stokes.
Atkinson has been at the Oval for the last two days. He has shown no ill-effects from his early-hours escapades and has even been bowling sharply before play in Surrey’s championship match.
