Brook, already in charge of the white-ball teams, was overlooked for the captaincy when Stokes missed last week’s second Test at The Oval on disciplinary grounds. Instead, Stokes’ predecessor, Joe Root, led the team for the first time in over four years, though he could not prevent England slipping to a heavy defeat.
Cricinfo understands that England’s management are reluctant to burden a player with the captaincy in all three formats. If Brook is elevated to the Test captaincy, he may therefore step down from the role in at least one white-ball format. Sam Curran and Jacob Bethell would be contenders to succeed him.
“There’s a reason why he was asked to be vice-captain of this team,” Stokes said of Brook. “I know that with all the controversy over the last couple of weeks, there were some decisions that were made [Root leading the team], but those were decisions that I wasn’t part of making.
“You’re asked to be vice captain of the team for a certain reason. I was vice captain under Joe for a long time and it’s a natural progression. If the captain’s not there or unavailable, then he had to do that. So there’s absolutely no reason why Harry shouldn’t [do it].
“He’s someone who’s obviously an incredible player, one of the more senior players in this group, but we all know he’s a phenomenally talented individual when it comes to his skills as a batter. And if you love a bit more responsibility on the shoulders with this team, we don’t know if that’s going to show any more improvement in the skills that he’s already got.
“Only time will tell, but you don’t ask someone to be vice captain if you don’t think that they’ve got the skills and the ability to be able to captain the team when they need to. So if I was to be asked who I think should do it, I’m throwing my 100% support behind Harry Brook.”
“Those are the conversations we need to have in due course,” McCullum told Sky Sports. “We’ve got a few weeks longer than that before the next Test series, and we’ll have a good opportunity to be able to sit down and start to map out what that looks like.
“The good thing is, we’ve got some good, strong leaders within the side, and we’ve got some options to be able to be able to utilize. They won’t be Ben Stokes, because Ben Stokes is very much his own type of leader, which we all adored, and it will need to be some work put in there, but that’s just the nature of things.
“No one can play forever, no one can captain forever, we want to celebrate Stokes’s time as our captain, his career, and then in time we’ll start to think about those decisions.”
Root was also asked on Sky about whether he would want the role back, having captained England for the 65th time at The Oval, but avoided giving a direct answer. “I’m going to enjoy celebrating Ben’s career over the next couple of days with him and his loved ones, and focus purely on that,” he said. “I think today should be all about him and everything that he’s achieved and done for English cricket.”
“What me, Brendon and Rob have managed to do over four-and-a-half years has been, it’s been quite an interesting ride. We’ve had some incredible highs. We’ve had some pretty low lows as well, but I feel we’ve always worked and connected pretty well in terms of what we want to achieve and we’ve always had that direction of, how do we get the team better? How do we take it forward? it doesn’t always work out the way that you want it to work out.
“I’m being honest, one of the nice feelings about being in the situation that I find myself in now is that I don’t have to worry about that stuff, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my four and a half years working relationship with Brendon and Rob.
“I think the most important thing with whatever happens going forward is that there needs to be clarity and [a] vision of whatever is going to take English cricket forward, with the changes that are obviously going to happen. When me and Brendon first took over, we were very clear about what we wanted to do and that’s going to be no different for the next [leader].
“Both captain and coach need to come together and put their ideas together and believe in what they’re trying to do going forward and, whoever that may be, that’s what needs to happen.”
“I am incredibly content with everything right now,” he told BBC Test Match Special. “It is a decision I don’t take lightly. It has taken a lot of time. I am done. I am very happy.”
Asked again if he was sure, Stokes confirmed: “Sure.”
He later reiterated to the written press: “I’ll be watching in hospitality.”
