Ben Stokes has long been the face of England’s Test cricket, and his credentials as a genuine match-winner are beyond debate. Few players in the modern game possess the ability to change the course of a match with either bat or ball, often doing so under immense pressure. Those qualities were a major factor behind the ECB handing him the captaincy in April 2022, at a time when Joe Root was battling inconsistent results, and the team looked short on direction.
Stokes’ elevation coincided with the arrival of Brendon McCullum as head coach, a partnership that was meant to signal a fresh start. The two share a similar cricketing philosophy, built around fearlessness and attacking intent, and together they pushed England towards the now-famous ‘Bazball’ approach. It was billed as a reset — a bold attempt to reimagine how Test cricket could be played, making it faster, more aggressive and more entertaining.
In many ways, England succeeded in that brief. Matches became livelier, declarations bolder and batting orders less restrained by convention. However, while the excitement was undeniable, consistency in results has remained elusive. Against elite opposition and in demanding overseas conditions, the aggressive model has often been exposed. What was meant to revolutionise Test cricket has, at times, highlighted the fine line between bravery and recklessness — a balance England are still struggling to strike.
England never really threatened to make the World Test Championship final in the previous cycle. Despite winning 11 of their 22 matches, more than third-placed India and fourth-placed New Zealand, the flip side told a harsher story. They also lost 10 Tests, the most by any team in that cycle, and those defeats proved costly, ultimately undoing the gains from their victories and leaving them well short in the points race.
{{/usCountry}}England never really threatened to make the World Test Championship final in the previous cycle. Despite winning 11 of their 22 matches, more than third-placed India and fourth-placed New Zealand, the flip side told a harsher story. They also lost 10 Tests, the most by any team in that cycle, and those defeats proved costly, ultimately undoing the gains from their victories and leaving them well short in the points race.
{{/usCountry}}Matters have only gone downhill in the current cycle. England have lost five of their nine Tests so far and managed just three wins. They also missed a golden opportunity to make a strong start against India, settling for a 2–2 draw at home against a side entering a clear transition phase following the retirements of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin.
Despite all this, it still feels highly unlikely that England would take the drastic step of removing Stokes from the captaincy. But had he been leading India, would the same patience have been shown after three-and-a-half years of patchy, inconsistent results?
Virat Kohli - The Failed White-ball Captain
Well, we have seen what happened with Kohli, a generational cricketer, being called a “failed white-ball captain.”
Despite his impressive on-paper record, Kohli is often rated as a failed white-ball captain because India did not win a single ICC limited-overs title under his leadership. While he achieved a remarkable 68.42 per cent win rate in ODIs and 60 per cent in T20Is, and scored 21 ODI centuries as captain, the inability to deliver an ICC trophy remains the key critique of his tenure. Success in bilateral series and consistency in matches could not fully offset the perception that he fell short on the sport’s biggest stage.
Although India reached the final of the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy under Kohli and played impressive cricket in the 2019 ODI World Cup, their campaign ended in a rain-affected loss to New Zealand, which shifted the momentum away from them. Kohli’s final tournament as white-ball captain was the 2021 T20 World Cup, where India exited in the group stage. He had already announced his decision to step down as T20I captain, but the BCCI made the bold move of removing him from ODI captaincy as well, aiming to have a single leader for both white-ball formats. Despite his outstanding ODI record, critics labelled him a failed white-ball captain, a view Kohli later addressed in an interview.
"Look you play to win tournaments. A lot was made of it (not lifting an ICC trophy as skipper). I captained in the 2017 Champions Trophy, I captained the 2019 World Cup side, I captained India in the (inaugural) World Test Championship final. "So, after three ICC tournaments... we lost the last (2021) T20 World Cup. We didn't qualify. We reached the finals of 2017 Champions Trophy, semi-finals of the (2019) World Cup, final of (World) Test Championship, and I was considered as a failed captain," Kohli said, while speaking on the RCB podcast.
Looking at both cases, it’s evident that Kohli and Stokes have led with immense skill and commitment, yet the way they are perceived is worlds apart. Kohli, despite taking India to ICC finals and semi-finals, faced intense criticism and eventually lost his ODI captaincy. Stokes, on the other hand, has suffered heavy defeats, including the Ashes collapse, but remains in charge. The difference isn’t about ability; it’s about the enormous expectations in Indian cricket versus the patience English cricket shows, proving that perception and context often weigh as heavily as on-field results.