Mark Butcher believes England are going to find it extremely tough to replace ‘three-players-in-one’ Ben Stokes.
Speaking on Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast, Butcher said that the England management would struggle to replace Ben Stokes in the playing XI following his retirement. He pointed out how Stokes provided balance to the team and was like "three players in one," and replacing him could "cause utter carnage".
Notably, England lost all of the last three Tests they played without Stokes - against Sri Lanka, India and New Zealand. His absence from the XI made it tough for them to include a spinner in the XI for the recent Oval Test against the BlackCaps.
“Trying to replace a player who is three players in one means that the entire 11 has to change,” Butcher said. “The balance has to shift. You have to think of, you know, creative ways of getting the right 11 out there on the park. And that is very difficult. And England are going to have to play six Test matches like that between now and then. And that could cause utter carnage.”
Stokes backed Harry Brook to take over the captaincy of the Test team but Butcher believes whoever takes over as captain will struggle to have the same impact as the former. According to him, the new captain may not be able to get the confidence of the entire team for unconventional ideas.
“Whoever replaces Ben Stokes as captain will not have the same charisma," he addded, "will not have the same force of personality to be able to drive through mad ideas that maybe only three-quarters of the team that he’s leading believe in and still manage to make them work. So things are inevitably going to change.”
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