![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0ADvN5tZJ7.png\")
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Former England skipper Michael Vaughan says Harry Brook<\/a>, not Ollie Pope<\/a>, should lead England in Ben Stokes’<\/a> absence.<\/p>\n At the end of day three of the fifth Test of the 2025 Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, England were 50-1 with 324 more runs needed to win, a target that may have been substantially smaller had they held on to their chances in the field, and had Chris Woakes not gone off with a dislocated shoulder at the end of day one. <\/p>\n The hosts’ lineup at The Oval was significantly different to the ones that had played the previous four Tests, with the quick turnaround from Old Trafford forcing changes to the pace attack. This included the unavailability of captain Ben Stokes, who had picked up a shoulder injury in addition to a mild hamstring strain at Old Trafford<\/a>. In his absence, vice-captain Ollie Pope took over the reins of the side.<\/p>\n Vaughan: Harry Brook looks a born leader to me <\/p>\n \u201cThe England side with Ben Stokes as a captain, I think they can beat anybody,\u201d said former England captain Michael Vaughan on the BBC’s<\/a> Test Match Special<\/a>at the end of the third day. \u201cThe England side without Ben Stokes, I think they can lose to anybody. I think he\u2019s that big a player.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat they\u2019ve got to be careful of \u2013 I\u2019ve said it before \u2013 is that sometimes, I look at someone like Ollie Pope who looks a fantastic vice-captain. He\u2019s a brilliant person to have next to the captain and just come up with ideas. And sometimes vice-captains aren\u2019t brilliant captains. <\/p>\n \u201cYou know, Marcus Trescothick was a brilliant vice-captain for me, but you wouldn\u2019t want to give him the captaincy. And I just wonder whether it\u2019s worth England thinking \u2026 Harry Brook to me looks a leader. He looks a born leader. We\u2019ve seen him in white-ball cricket. And if Ben Stokes is injured in the future, can\u2019t Ollie just stay as the vice-captain, and Harry Brook gets the leadership role?<\/p>\n \u201cLook, it\u2019s not Ollie Pope\u2019s fault that England are in this position. It\u2019s certainly not his, it\u2019s the catching that\u2019s let England down. But I just want the best captain who is the best leader, leading the England side.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n This is not the first time that Vaughan has questioned Pope’s captaincy credentials. In August 2024, he labelled Pope \u201cquite an insecure human being\u201d<\/a>, saying that captaincy was only adding pressure on the player. Even then, Vaughan backed Brook as a better option to lead the team.<\/p>\n Brook was made England’s white-ball captain earlier this year after Jos Buttler stepped down<\/a>, and had led them against Australia at home last year. He has yet to captain in Test cricket, or indeed in any first-class cricket. Pope led England to three wins in four Tests prior to the ongoing match. His only first-class experience before leading England was one game as captain, for Surrey against Glamorgan in the 2021 County Championship. <\/p>\n Follow Wisden for all England vs India<\/a> updates, including live scores<\/a>, latest news<\/a>, team lineups<\/a>, schedule and more. The live streaming details for the ENG vs IND series in India, UK, USA and rest of the world can be found here.<\/a> For Wisden quizzes, head here.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Cover StoriesCover Stories AsiaHarry BrookOllie PopeCover Stories IndiaSeries Cover Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England skipper Michael Vaughan says Harry Brook, not Ollie Pope, should lead England in Ben Stokes’ absence.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-40603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}