Eoin Morgan backs Ben Stokes for England Test captaincy, rules himself out of contention

England white-ball skipper Eoin Morgan has ruled himself out of Test captaincy contention, instead offering his backing to Ben Stokes.

England's World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan ruled himself out of the race of becoming the next men's Test captain while backing all-rounder Ben Stokes to take up the job after Joe Root's resignation earlier in April. Morgan rallied England to a title win in the 2019 50-over World Cup. The result was a culmination of a remarkable turnaround of the team’s white-ball form following a disastrous group-stage exit in 2015.

"Absolutely not, no. I'm very happy with the role that I play within the white-ball team and English cricket at the moment. It has been the part of my career that I'm most proud of. My career is firmly focused on World Cups, and hopefully sustaining what we've built over the last six years is probably going to be the most important part of what I leave behind eventually. I haven't played red-ball cricket for a long time. I wouldn't have any interest in the job. I would be no good at it," Morgan told Sky Sports.

Morgan, who played a Test match in February 2012 against Pakistan in Dubai, has backed Stokes to take the role of captaining England in the longest format of the game.

"Obviously, Ben is a fantastic player, a brilliant leader, though he doesn't need to have the captain's armband on to lead like he does. The experience of the World Cup final here (at Lord's) really showed his true colours in the way that he led from start to finish - and throughout the whole tournament as well," he said.

"He'd certainly be a candidate. I think it would be hard to turn down the captaincy. It's a privileged position to be in. Obviously, circumstances have to be right, but most people who want to take red-ball cricket forward would like to take it on."

Morgan revealed that he had a meeting with the new ECB managing director of men's cricket, Rob Key and felt that splitting coaching roles on the basis of formats would be the road ahead as England geared up to appoint the next coaches for the men's team. "Just the demands of the game as a whole now is huge, there is almost no break. It's such a big ask for one man to do the job."

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