England Test captains

Following Ben Stokes’s injury, vice-captain Ollie Pope is set to become England's 82nd men's Test captain - Here is the full list of those who have led them in the format.

Ollie Pope is all set to become the 82nd man to lead England at men’s Test cricket. Starting with James Lillywhite, England’s current list of 81 captains is not only the most for any nation but nearly as much as the next two teams – Australia (47, despite starting as a Test side at the same time as England) and South Africa (39) – put together.

Partly, this is down to England being fickle with their captains – Test cricket is not even 150 years old – but that is not entirely the reason. Early tours were reached by sea, and often lasted six months. Only the cricketers who could take time out toured, and the captain was chosen from them.

Tours sometimes coincided. England sent teams to Australia and South Africa in 1891/92, and to New Zealand and the West Indies in 1929/30. But most significantly, until Len Hutton in 1952, only amateur cricketers could lead England. This resulted in cricketers being chosen to lead on non-Ashes tours based on social status and not cricketing skills, often for exactly one tour. Professional captains were rare even at county level. Legends like Sydney Barnes or Herbert Sutcliffe were, thus, never in the reckoning.

Hutton, England’s 46th captain (well past halfway on the list of captains), led 23 times – at that point a record. However, had it not been for England’s insistence on amateur captains (he had to join the board of directors at Marsham Tyres to renounce his professional status) and the Second World War, Wally Hammond would certainly have led more than 20 times. But then, Hutton got the job towards the end of his career as well.

England found some stability after that. By 1973, Peter May had led them 41 times; Colin Cowdrey 27; Ted Dexter 30; MJK Smith 25; and Ray Illingworth 31 – all more than Hutton.

Since the 1990s, captaincy stints became longer – the increase in Test-playing teams and, as a result, matches, contributed to this – and Michael Atherton (54), Michael Vaughan (51), Andrew Strauss (50), Alastair Cook (59), and Joe Root (a record 64) all led them 50 times.

Ben Stokes has led England 27 times in Tests, once during Root's tenure, standing in during paternity leave, and then for England's last 26 Tests during the start of the 2022 summer. Given his patchy injury record, this might be some surprise, and he has often played as a specialist bat in that time. A tear to a hamstring has ended that streak, with Pope set to take charge for at least the Sri Lanka series. Stokes is aiming to return for England's tour of Pakistan in October.

List of captains for England in men’s Test cricket:

England Test captain Stint M W L Tied W/L
James Lillywhite 1877-1877 2 1 1 0 1.000
Lord (Robert Canning) Harris 1879-1884 4 2 1 0 2.000
Alfred Shaw 1881-1882 4 0 2 0 0.000
‘Monkey’ Hornby 1882-1884 2 0 1 0 0.000
Ivo Bligh 1882-1883 4 2 2 0 1.000
Arthur Shrewsbury 1884-1887 7 5 2 0 2.500
AG Steel 1886-1888 4 3 1 0 3.000
WW Read 1888-1892 2 2 0 0 -
WG Grace 1888-1899 13 8 3 0 2.666
C Aubrey Smith 1889-1889 1 1 0 0 -
Monty Bowden 1889-1889 1 1 0 0 -
Andrew ‘Drewy’ Stoddart 1893-1898 8 3 4 0 0.750
Tim O’Brien 1896-1896 1 1 0 0 -
Lord (Martin Bladen) Hawke 1896-1899 4 4 0 0 -
Archie MacLaren 1897-1909 22 4 11 0 0.363
‘Plum’ Warner 1903-1906 10 4 6 0 0.666
Stanley Jackson 1905-1905 5 2 0 0 -
‘Tip’ Foster 1907-1907 3 1 0 0 -
Fred Fane 1907-1910 5 2 3 0 0.666
Arthur Jones 1908-1908 2 0 2 0 0.000
‘Shrimp’ Leveson Gower 1910-1910 3 1 2 0 0.500
Johnny Douglas 1911-1924 18 8 8 0 1.000
CB Fry 1912-1912 6 4 0 0 -
Lionel Tennyson 1921-1921 3 0 1 0 0.000
Frank Mann 1922-1923 5 2 1 0 2.000
Arthur Gilligan 1924-1925 9 4 4 0 1.000
Arthur Carr 1926-1929 6 1 0 0 -
Percy Chapman 1926-1931 17 9 2 0 4.500
Rony Stanyforth 1927-1928 4 2 1 0 2.000
Greville Stevens 1928-1928 1 0 1 0 0.000
Jack White 1929-1929 4 1 1 0 1.000
Harold Gilligan 1930-1930 4 1 0 0 -
Freddie Calthorpe 1930-1930 4 1 1 0 1.000
Bob Wyatt 1930-1935 16 3 5 0 0.600
Douglas Jardine 1931-1934 15 9 1 0 9.000
Cyril Walters 1934-1934 1 0 1 0 0.000
‘Gubby’ Allen 1936-1948 11 4 5 0 0.800
Walter Robins 1937-1937 3 1 0 0 -
Wally Hammond 1938-1947 20 4 3 0 1.333
Norman Yardley 1947-1950 14 4 7 0 0.571
Ken Cranston 1948-1948 1 0 0 0 0.000
George Mann 1948-1949 7 2 0 0 -
Freddie Brown 1949-1951 15 5 6 0 0.833
Nigel Howard 1951-1952 4 1 0 0 -
Donald Carr 1952-1952 1 0 1 0 0.000
Len Hutton 1952-1955 23 11 4 0 2.750
David Sheppard 1954-1954 2 1 0 0 -
Peter May 1955-1961 41 20 10 0 2.000
Colin Cowdrey 1959-1969 27 8 4 0 2.000
Ted Dexter 1961-1964 30 9 7 0 1.285
MJK Smith 1964-1966 25 5 3 0 1.666
Brian Close 1966-1967 7 6 0 0 -
Tom Graveney 1968-1968 1 0 0 0 0.000
Ray Illingworth 1969-1973 31 12 5 0 2.400
Tony Lewis 1972-1973 8 1 2 0 0.500
Mike Denness 1974-1975 19 6 5 0 1.200
John Edrich 1975-1975 1 0 1 0 0.000
Tony Greig 1975-1977 14 3 5 0 0.600
Mike Brearley 1977-1981 31 18 4 0 4.500
Geoff Boycott 1978-1978 4 1 1 0 1.000
Ian Botham 1980-1981 12 0 4 0 0.000
Keith Fletcher 1981-1982 7 1 1 0 1.000
Bob Willis 1982-1984 18 7 5 0 1.400
David Gower 1982-1989 32 5 18 0 0.277
Mike Gatting 1986-1988 23 2 5 0 0.400
John Emburey 1988-1988 2 0 2 0 0.000
Chris Cowdrey 1988-1988 1 0 1 0 0.000
Graham Gooch 1988-1993 34 10 12 0 0.833
Allan Lamb 1990-1990 3 0 3 0 0.000
Alec Stewart 1993-2001 15 4 8 0 0.500
Michael Atherton 1993-2001 54 13 21 0 0.619
Nasser Hussain 1999-2003 45 17 15 0 1.133
Mark Butcher 1999-1999 1 0 0 0 0.000
Michael Vaughan 2003-2008 51 26 11 0 2.363
Marcus Trescothick 2004-2005 2 1 1 0 1.000
Andrew Flintoff 2006-2007 11 2 7 0 0.285
Andrew Strauss 2006-2012 50 24 11 0 2.181
Kevin Pietersen 2008-2008 3 1 1 0 1.000
Alastair Cook 2010-2016 59 24 22 0 1.090
Joe Root 2017-2022 64 27 26 0 1.038
Ben Stokes 2020-2024 27 17 9 0 1.888
Ollie Pope 2024- - - - - -

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