Thursday, May 5, 2011

Cook, Broad, Strauss to split England captaincy

England will name captains for the three formats of cricket that are currently being played at the international level. While Andrew Strauss will be the Test captain, Alastair Cook will be the one-day captain and Stuart Broad will be the Twenty20 skipper.

According to the Daily Mail, team director Andy Flower tried to talk Strauss out of quitting for another year or so. Yet Strauss, who at 34, knows he will not be around for the next World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, is adamant that the time is right for him to step down and allow the planning for 2015 to begin.

Cook, who made a good impression as England captain in Bangladesh last year, emphatically showed in the Ashes that he could score runs in Australia. But he still needs to show whether he can emulate Strauss in developing his game for one-day cricket.lower and England managing director Hugh Morris will announce the unprecedented news at Lord's this morning.

This all means that England are ready to call time on the international career of Collingwood.

The man who led England to the World Twenty20 title last year is said to be upset at effectively being sacked as the short-form leader.

But Flower said after England's latest World Cup embarrassment in Sri Lanka that all one-day planning should be done with the World Cup in mind so there would seem little point in picking the 34-year-old Collingwood when he, too, will not be available in 2015. Source