Ben Stokes will captain England in the ODIs vs. Pakistan starting this week. When Ben leads England at Cardiff on Thursday (8 July) it will be his first ODI in charge.
At the start of the week Ben was playing for Durham in the LV= Insurance County Championship. Due to seven positive COVID tests amongst the England players originally selected, and the management team, the ECB quickly announced, a new 18 player squad.
As a consequence, Ben along with fellow Phoenix family members James Vince (Hampshire) and Zak Crawley (Kent) left their respective counties to join up with others in the new squad.
With the first ODI just days away, Ben, James and Zak and the rest of the fresh squad will have minimal time to prepare.
Ben, who only returned to action for Durham on 20 June after recovering from injury will lead a squad comprising of debutants and players returning to the international stage.
After a forgettable Test series against New Zealand, Zak has since returned to Kent, where he has hit 271 runs from 7 innings in the Vitality Blast.
James has appeared in 16 ODIs for England since 2015 and was a member of the winning World Cup squad in 2019. Back in February, James was instrumental in helping Sydney Sixers gain their second consecutive BBL final win.
(PhoenixMedia Image Created from a Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images for ECB)