Twenty20 / Michael Vaughan / 23 June 2011 /

The appointment of Stuart Broad as England's T20 captain is met with Michael Vaughan's approval. But this is a tough job and he needs to start getting results right away.

I must say, I'm a little surprised by all this never-ending business surrounding the different England captaincies.

I can see the rationale behind naming Andrew Strauss (Test), Alastair Cook (ODI) and Stuart Broad (T20) as the three captains across the different formats. Strauss has called time on his limited-overs career but remains as Test captain whilst Alastair Cook has been named ODI captain to give him some experience of international leadership, presumably so he can take over from Strauss when he retires from the Test game. Cook himself isn't part of England's T20 set-up so the management has decided to see how Broad fares with a view to possibly take over in one of the two longer formats in the future.

What I don't understand is the decision to name vice-captains on top of that. Eoin Morgan has been announced as Broad's deputy in the T20 format and we await the announcement of Cook's stand-in just before the ODI Series starts. It all seems chaotic. When I was skipper, there was no need to formally tell the Media and everyone else that Marcus Trescothick was my deputy. He just was. If I was out injured, he'd step in and that was that. No need to put it in stone as to what the hierarchy was.

I can see what the England Selectors like about Stuart Broad, though. They see him as a natural leader of men and think he's tactically astute. In T20 you need to think on your feet and always be one step ahead of the game. You need to make big decisions that somehow change the course of the match and Stuart looks like a man who isn't afraid to make them and then live by the consequences.

If there's one T20 captain you should be seeing as an inspiration it's MS Dhoni. He has two IPL titles and a T20 World Cup to his credit, not to mention his recent success in the 50-over World Cup. He sometimes does slightly odd things like opening with a part-time off-spinner or promoting a lower-middle order batsman up the order and of course these gambles don't always come off. But he gets most decisions right and that goes a long way to explaining why he's had so much success in the role.

Of course, it's not fair to compare Broad to someone of Dhoni's experience. He's done the job with India for an eternity and he's played just about every match over the course of four IPL campaigns. Despite being a World Cup winner with England, Broad hasn't actually played that much of the shortest format.

But the proof is in the pudding, as they say. If over the next couple of years England get good results, these debates about who was appointed as captain or vice-captain won't come up. But if the World Champions go on a poor run, they will inevitably surface and whether he likes it or not, Broad will be held accountable.

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