The career of an England Test captain, like a life in politics, always seems to end in failure. Maybe it’s at a tearful press conference after back-to-back thrashings by South Africa. Or by a hastily arranged England Cricket Board statement sent out after a row that also cost the head coach his job. Or off the back of an almighty spat with your star batsman that started when he was caught sending texts to the opposition slating your leadership. Or at the fag end of a slump of form in which the team lost five series in a row. In the end the job seems to break everyone who takes it on.
Experience tells you that whoever takes over next – and it looks as if it will be Ben Stokes – will end up in a similar place. Sooner or later, the captaincy becomes a study in watching a good man get ground down. The question is what he and his team can achieve along the way.
