{"id":772939,"date":"2026-07-01T21:59:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T21:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/772939\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T21:59:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T21:59:36","slug":"cricket-news-2026-harry-brook-comments-on-england-captaincy-ben-stokes-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/772939\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket news 2026: Harry Brook comments on England captaincy, Ben Stokes retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harry Brook<\/a> said it would be \u201can honour and a privilege\u201d to become Test captain moving forward, in the wake of Ben Stokes\u2019 sudden retirement<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Stokes dropped a bombshell in the middle of England\u2019s loss to New Zealand<\/a> earlier this week, announcing he would be retiring from international cricket.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ben Stokes retired after the third Test.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old\u2019s decision came fresh off a nightclub incident in London<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His exit leaves a gaping hole for England, both from a playing quality and leadership perspective, with plenty of debate surrounding who replaces Stokes.<\/p>\n

Brook has been the Test vice-captain for quite some time, but was involved in a similar off-field incident to the departing skipper prior to the Ashes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Joe Root<\/a> has expressed little interest in taking over again on a permanent basis, despite leading the side in the second Test recently when Stokes was stood down.<\/p>\n

Another possible candidate is young gun Jacob Bethell<\/a>, but former captain Michael Vaughan<\/a> cautioned against it this early in his Test career.<\/p>\n

The lack of genuine captaincy options means that Brook appears to be in the box-seat to assume the position – but he isn\u2019t aware of the ECB\u2019s plans yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be an honour and a privilege to be Test captain \u2013 the pinnacle of our sport,\u201d he told BBC Sport after the 2-1 series loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not up to me to make that decision. It\u2019s up to people well above me. I\u2019d be happy to do it if I did get asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

One concern raised around Brook – aside from his recent off-field troubles – is the fact he already captains the ODI and T20 teams for England.<\/p>\n

However, the 27-year-old is confident he could juggle all three jobs if required.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying it would be easy, but I definitely do think it is possible,\u201d Brook said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact I don\u2019t play franchise cricket means there are periods in my calendar when I wouldn\u2019t be playing cricket.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be focusing on my fitness and getting ready to play all three formats, which has been a dream of mine since I could speak or walk. If I am or I\u2019m not captain for England in Test cricket, I\u2019d be happy to just still be playing for England.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Harry Brook is the England vice-captain.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Stokes threw his support behind his understudy stepping into the role.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a reason why he was asked to be vice-captain of this team,\u201d Stokes said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was vice-captain under Joe for a long time and it\u2019s a natural progression. If the captain\u2019s not there or unavailable, then he had to do that. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s absolutely no reason why Harry shouldn\u2019t. He\u2019s someone who\u2019s obviously an incredible player, one of the more senior players in this group, but we all know he\u2019s a phenomenally talented individual when it comes to his skills as a batter. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t ask someone to be vice-captain if you don\u2019t think that they\u2019ve got the skills and the ability to be able to captain the team. If I was to be asked who I think should do it, I\u2019m throwing my 100 per cent support behind Harry Brook.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harry Brook said it would be \u201can honour and a privilege\u201d to become Test captain moving forward, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-772939","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\/772939","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=772939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}