England must start grooming next Test captain to succeed Ben Stokes – there are two key contenders

When it comes to the unenviable task of eventually replacing Ben Stokes as Test captain, England expect that it is between Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley that they must choose.

Pope and Crawley were born just 32 days apart, at the start of 1998. In a sense, their careers have been intertwined ever since.

As schoolboys, at Cranleigh and Tonbridge, both Pope and Crawley combined captaincy with being star players. Pope then made his county debut a year before Crawley – and, aged 20, his England Test debut a year before his contemporary as well. Aged 25, Pope has played 38 Tests; after missing the last three Ashes Tests, Crawley has now reached 39. Pope still averages three runs more – 34 to 31 – but Crawley’s trajectory against Australia showed the depth of his talent.

Initially, just as Pope was first to win a Test debut, so he was first to be given a national leadership role. When Stokes, as is his want, did not play in England warm-up matches last winter, Pope was appointed as captain in Abu Dhabi and Hamilton. This was the prelude to Pope being appointed as official Test vice-captain last summer.

Had Stokes – who has rejected a long-term England deal that would have taken him up to the next Ashes – not been fit to play in an Ashes Test this summer, Pope would have become the 82nd man to captain England in a Test match.

Softly spoken and understated, to some Pope does not appear an obvious leader. But he captained Cranleigh School for two years and has impressed with his tactical nous as a stand-in captain at Surrey.

In February, Stuart Broad hailed Pope’s leadership qualities. “He’s grown so much in the last year, the way he operates, the confidence and responsibility he’s been given,” Broad said. “There’s no doubt you can see him as a future England captain.”

Quietly, Pope has also made his aspirations clear. “If that happens [becoming England captain], great,” he said. “I’m going to keep developing my cricket brain. If that opportunity comes up in the future, I’ll make sure I can learn as much as possible before then.”

Yet in recent months, Crawley has emerged as a strong alternative to Pope. An outstanding Ashes series helped, of course: while Pope averaged 22 in the first two Tests before dislocating his shoulder, Crawley averaged 53, scoring more runs than any other Englishman. From driving the first ball of the series from Pat Cummins for four at a raucous Edgbaston, Crawley served as the standard-bearer for England’s approach.

Along the way, he also gave notice of his leadership capabilities. Before the second Ashes Test at Lord’s, with England suffering from several injuries, Crawley asked if he could address the side in the team huddle. Crawley told them a parable of a Chinese farmer who lived his life by a Far Eastern proverb: ‘Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?’

The message was for England to focus on their actions, rather than worry about events that they could not control.

When England came to selecting an experimental squad in their one-day international series against Ireland last month, they entrusted Crawley with the leadership. While he has only done the role for Kent in two matches apiece in the County Championship and T20 Blast, England recognise the schedule no longer allows international players to get much leadership experience in the professional game.

England viewed giving Crawley the armband as a down payment on the future. “Zak could be somebody that captains in other formats,” said Mo Bobat, England’s performance director. “You want to try and invest opportunities like this into players where you might get a return on that investment in the future.”

And so, after Pope had beaten him to so many landmarks, Crawley was the first of the pair to captain England. A duck in his first game was an inauspicious start. But in the field, Crawley evoked Stokes’s buccaneering style; unperturbed by his batting failure, he promptly thrashed a rapid half-century in his second innings as captain.

When it comes to choosing their next Test captain, England will be able to choose between two cricketers who have received Stokes’s ardent backing and been shaped by him. Whether they plump for Pope or Crawley, Stokes’s influence upon England will remain.