sport news England v New Zealand: You have to be impressed with what you see from Ben ... trends now
It is early days still but considering Ben Stokes did not have any real experience of red-ball captaincy before this series against New Zealand, you have to be impressed with what you see.
Watching this England side it is obvious who is leading the team. People will ask: 'Don't you get that all the time?' No, I don't think you do.
Sometimes it can be captaincy by committee, sometimes there is a lot of input from the outside to a captain but at the moment it is obvious who is wearing the armband. Stokes has good body language as a leader and he is always at mid-off chatting with, and cajoling, his bowler.
It is early days still but you have to be impressed with what you see from Ben Stokes as captain
Stokes has good body language and is always at mid-off chatting with his bowler
And he backs people. In the first hour yesterday he went with the left-arm spin of Jack Leach and was rewarded. Leach was under a bit of pressure but I have noticed both here and in Nottingham, where he was also introduced into the attack early, that Stokes is constantly behind him.
I also like the way he brings fielders up for his spinner. Last game, Leach got Tom Blundell out by having a man in at mid-off.
Then, before tea yesterday, although it ended up being a freak dismissal, had he not changed the long-on and invited the chance to hit him over the top, Henry Nicholls would not have gone for the expansive shot that cost him his wicket.
Captaincy tends to follow your personality and Stokes is erring on the side of positive, attacking but not reckless cricket. It is how he is as a batter.
I have noticed that Stokes (right) is constantly behind left-arm spinner Jack Leach (left)
He has instilled an attacking mindset into England and although it is very much the start of his captaincy career, you would not recognise that from observing. He strikes me as someone who even when he was not captain would always be thinking
