NASSER HUSSAIN: I would make Harry Brook the England skipper… but here’s why he is not the dream ticket

Harry Brook would be my choice as England’s next limited-overs captain now it’s clearly time to move on from Jos Buttler.

If you’re having to think about being England captain, as Buttler said he would be after Champions Trophy elimination earlier this week, you probably know you’re done.

The truth is though that as far as future leaders go, the cupboard is pretty bare and some of that is simply because not enough domestic 50-over cricket is being played.

And there would be issues with appointing Brook. Namely whether, in such an important year that includes a home Test series against India and ends with the Ashes, you want to pass on all the burdens associated with leading a struggling side onto a young man and make his life a bit more difficult as a result.

England are trying to go in a direction where they’re playing a lot of their Test players in the limited-overs sides. Do they want that with the captain as well? That is another question.

The months ahead are very important in red-ball cricket and that would be something to consider if Brook took over.

I enjoyed watching him captain last year, whether it be in the Hundred or against Australia, when he got a hundred in one of the games – which suggested he was quite happy balancing the two roles.

But you’ve still got to be careful. You don’t want to be weighing down a very talented young player with it all.

An alternative candidate would be Sam Billings. If you want a stop-gap, he has done very well in franchise cricket, is someone that knows leadership and has won things like the Hundred and other franchise tournaments around the world. Personally, I would resist this though as the sooner you get Brook into the role the better.

If and when the change comes, they have to get it right, because this year is a year of reckoning for Bazball – the Brendon McCullum, Rob Key era – and they’ve been planning it for a long time.

The first hurdle of 2025 hasn’t been tackled with aplomb, and make no mistake this failure wasn’t a one-off. That’s two or three poor tournaments in a row.

They have also lost four-straight bilateral series, so results have been a concern for a while, yet like Buttler said, there’s a lot of talented people in that dressing room. So something is not quite right.

I’ve never looked at Jos and thought, ‘wow, that’s an amazing bit of leadership,’ or ‘that’s an amazing tactical change.’ What I do see is a world-class, limited-overs cricketer, and that is being diminished. If the captaincy is making your best player a worse player, it’s a problem.

As for the rest of the squad? Well, there is no need to take out a chainsaw, but if you are going to use a scalpel be ruthless with it. Make little cuts here and there when thinking about the direction you need to go in, rather than say: Get rid of this lot.

Are these players willing to accept that a 50-over game is not Twenty20. Phil Salt and Liam Livingstone are two that this applies to.

Sure, everyone could argue that Eoin Morgan saw one-day internationals as an extension of a 20-over contest, but Morgan had depth to his batting line-up. Ben Stokes was the buffer at five, batting them out of trouble if they got into it.

Liam Plunkett played a role in the middle overs with the ball, but which seamer is playing that role nowadays? None of them.

So be ruthless, and say you’ve got to change. As I say, this tournament was not a one-off.

Where opponents have played two frontline spinners, England have played one. Where’s our next spinner? They seem to like having Rehan Ahmed around the squad, but do they actually believe in him? If so, play him. Give him confidence.

Where’s the all-rounder? They don’t have one in this current group, as I consider Jamie Overton to be a bowler that bats.

They’ve obviously moved on from Stokes, but where is his successor? Sam Curran? Liam Dawson? Have they called time on those two? Those conversations need to be had with the World Cup in South Africa and Zimbabwe a couple of years away.

The ingredients of a decent side are there, it just needs some new direction.