Division of responsibilities heralds start of new era for English cricket

England cricket chiefs have confirmed that Andrew Strauss is stepping down as one-day captain of the national side and will be replaced by his Test match opening partner Alastair Cook. A change has also been announced in the captaincy of the England Twenty20 side with veteran Paul Collingwood, who led England to success in last year’sTwenty20 World Cup, being replaced by the younger Stuart Broad.

Strauss has led the one-day side for the last two years but has opted to step aside after a disappointing World Cup campaign in which his team were beaten by the likes of Ireland and Bangladesh in the group stages before being beaten by 10 wickets by Sri Lanka in the quarter-finals. Strauss told reporters, “We still have a long way to go if we’re to achieve our goal of winning ICC global events and I feel now is the right time for me to step aside and ensure someone else takes up that challenge. Retiring from one-day cricket will also enable me to focus solely on the Test captaincy and our ongoing development in the Test arena as we also strive to be the top ranked team in world cricket.”

Cook was the stand-out England batsmen during their historic Ashes success in Australia during the winter, scoring a record 766 runs, but was not included for the subsequently disappointing one-day series against the Aussies or the World Cup and the 26-year-old Essex batsman has made just three one-day appearances in the past two and a half years, all of which were on last year’s tour of Bangladesh. He obviously made an impression as stand-in skipper in those games, however, and his team are a best 4/7 with Victor Chandler to make a winning start under his leadership against the injury-hit Sri Lankans in the upcoming one-day series. England are 7/4 with sportingbet and Victor Chandler in the Correct Score market to win the series 3-2 and a general 3/1 to run out 4-1 winners.

Broad will make his debut as captain when he leads England’s Twenty20 side against Sri Lanka in Bristol next month though team director Andy Flower, who has just signed a contract extension, has admitted the decision to choose three different captains for the first time comes with an element of risk.