Joe Root will embark on his second stint as England Test captain later this month, becoming the 13th player, as well as the 10th, to take on the job since the year 2000. Ahead of his captaincy revival, we’ve ranked every player to captain England since the turn of the century.
A little bit of house-keeping before we begin, this list includes stand-in captains, of which England have had four, as well as those on full-time appointments. Ranking is not entirely decided by win percentage, but of the impact each of those captains made at the specific point of their captaincy tenure.
12. Michael Atherton – 2001
Two Tests, 0 wins, 2 losses
Atherton resigned from his full-time captaincy position in 1998, but stood in for an injured Nasser Hussain during the 2001 Ashes series. England were already 1-0 down by the time Atherton dug out his blazer at Lord’s, with another Australia mauling incoming. They lost both Tests before Hussain was fit to return. To Atherton’s credit, he took on the role after both Alec Stewart and Mark Butcher turned it down, but two hammerings by Australia make him the only entry on the list with an empty win column next to their name.
11. Ollie Pope – 2024-2025
Five Tests, 3 wins, 2 losses
Another stand-in, albeit one with far less experience at the time he took the armband, Pope covered for an injured Ben Stokes five times over his tenure. For the most part, Pope was a reliable stand-in, presiding over a series win against Sri Lanka in his first assignment. However, a loss in the final Test of that series despite taking a first innings lead goes against his name. His final Test in charge to date was an all-time great against India, where, once again, Pope presided over a narrow defeat after being in a strong position. Ultimately, he was being groomed as Stokes’ successor, but his own stagnation means he isn’t in a position to take that opportunity.
10. Marcus Trescothick – 2004-2005
Two Tests, 1 win, 1 loss
Trescothick was a near-perfect stand-in during the two Tests he covered for Michael Vaughan. He got England off to a winning mark at Lord’s against New Zealand in 2004, and made decent runs at the top of the order. When he stepped up again 18 months later, it wasn’t as straightforward. Set less than 200 to chase on in the fourth innings for what would have been a memorable win in Multan, England were bowled out 22 runs short. Nevertheless, Trescothick’s name joins a long list of England captains who suffered painful defeats in Pakistan, and he got them closer than most.
9. Alec Stewart – 2000-2001
Two Tests, 1 win, 1 loss
The last of the stand-in captains before we get to the meaty section of this list. Stewart was sacked as captain in 1999, but deputised for Hussain twice during his early years in the job. The first was a narrow win over the West Indies at Lord’s, and the second was a dramatic defeat to Pakistan a year later. England were 198-2 at Tea on the final day against Pakistan and dead-set for a series-clinching draw. However, wickets fell in a flurry in the evening session to see them bowled out for 261. In their defence, four of those wickets were off no balls that weren’t spotted. Nevertheless, Stewart was the near-perfect stand-in. Job done, and back in the ranks.
8. Andrew Flintoff – 2006-2007
11 Tests, 2 wins, 7 losses
Flintoff is the first full-time captain on this list, and first took on the role after injuries ruled out both Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick from the first Test of England’s 2006 series in India. However, he stayed in charge for the full series, which went down as a success despite the drawn scoreline, with Flintoff named player of the series. Having inherited a young team, Flintoff was seen in the kind of role Ben Stokes would play almost two decades later, a talisman to mould the side in his own image. It didn’t last, however, and a disastrous 2006/07 series in Australia signalled the death knell for his captaincy less than a year in.
7. Kevin Pietersen – 2008
Three Tests, 1 win, 1 loss, 1 draw
Pietersen narrowly sits above Flintoff on this list purely because his downfall stemmed mostly from off-field conflict rather than on-field devastation. The high-point of his tenure was his first Test in charge, after Michael Vaughan resigned mid-series against South Africa in the summer of 2008. Pietersen made a century in his first Test in charge, getting England on the points board in the last Test of the series. He faced a difficult situation during his first winter, when he was charged with leading a tour in the midst of the Mumbai Terror Attacks. But, post-series loss in India, his tenure quickly unraveled. After a public rift between himself and head coach Peter Moores, which rapidly spiralled into a full-blown crisis, both lost their jobs.
6. Joe Root – 2017-2022, 2026
65 Tests, 27 wins, 27 losses, 11 draws
Slap bang in the middle of this list is the man stepping up to the breach for a second time. Root is perhaps unfairly remembered for the final years of his first captaincy. Back then, Covid restrictions left him in perpetual bio-bubbles, constantly losing players to positive swab tests or enforced rest and rotation policies. Before that, Root had made a positive impact with the cards he was dealt, bringing through multi-dimensional cricketers in an attempt to move the side forward. Nevertheless, his tactics on the field became more attritional as he went on, and there was criticism of his management of Jofra Archer. While no England Test captain has won more games than Root, the stats about how many he lost linger more in the mind.
5. Alastair Cook – 2010-2016
59 Tests, 24 wins, 22 losses, 13 draws
Cook inherited a side on the slide from the golden years which saw them reach No.1 in the world. Having first taken on the role as a stand-in for Andrew Strauss in early 2010, Cook became full-time captain after Strauss’s retirement in 2012. His initial tenure was a resounding success, notching up a historic series win in India, before coming out on top against New Zealand. However, the cracks began to show in the back-to-back Ashes series of 2013, and his tenure was torpedoed by the car crash tour of Australia later that year. Nevertheless, Cook presided over two Ashes series wins in 2015, more than most England captains manage, to go alongside the series-win in India as rare feats. While his captaincy lacked the flair or imagination of the true greats, he got the job done.
4. Nasser Hussain – 2000-2003
39 Tests, 16 wins, 12 losses, 11 draws
There’s a certain amount of revisionism over Hussain’s time as captain, perhaps in part due to the self-depreciating nature of his own on-air reflections. In reality, Hussain came in at the advent of professionalism, and was the first to enforce the standards to match the era. He was also faced with contesting the Ashes against a near-unbeatable Australia side, with either young and inexperienced players, or embittered ones at the end of their careers. Ultimately, the England team of 2005 likely wouldn’t have happened without Hussain’s tenure, but leaders don’t always survive long enough to reap their rewards.
3. Ben Stokes – 2020, 2022-2026
44 Tests, 24 wins, 18 losses, 2 draws
The last nine months of Stokes’ tenure should not take away from his status as one of the most consequential England captains of all time. He took a side at their lowest ebb and removed their fear, achieved landmark series wins in the 2022 summer before the height of his side’s power in Pakistan in the same year. He groomed a new breed of English cricket, where the likes of Harry Brook and Jacob Bethell were empowered to follow their natural instincts rather than suppress them. His critics will point to his failure to win an Ashes in charge, thwarted by a downpour in Manchester in 2023. And to the end of his tenure, when the mantra he’d enforced ate itself, and he was powerless to bring it back to its original purity. The flair, the brashness, the absurdity, it was all there, but, in the end, Stokes was broken like the rest of them.
2. Michael Vaughan – 2003-2008
51 Tests, 26 wins, 11 losses, 14 draws
It speaks to our No.1 pick’s achievements that he keeps out the captain who presided over England’s greatest Ashes victory of the modern era. Vaughan built on what Hussain had started, moulding England into a side which could go toe-to-toe with Australia. He pulled his players into a collective that was far greater than the sum of their parts, and possessed an ability that only the greats have – to get the best out of the mavericks. Nevertheless, after that Ashes win he was plagued by knee injuries, and that side never played together again.
1. Andrew Strauss – 2006, 2009-2012
50 Tests, 24 wins, 11 losses, 15 draws
The mark of how monumental England’s Ashes win in 2010/11 is that no side has got even close since. It took 15 years for England to win another Test match in Australia, let alone bring back the urn. It’s also significant that this series doesn’t define Strauss’s captaincy. His partnership with Andy Flower saw England pulled out of a rut in the West Indies at the beginning of 2009, to winning the Ashes on home soil six months later. He took England to No.1 in the world, bringing Graeme Swann into the fold to form a formidable bowling group. There’s some sense of having the luxury of great players in their pomp – in Cook, Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell, James Anderson and Swann. But Strauss maximised those resources to take England to the top of the world, and the kind of dominance they haven’t been able to recreate since.
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