Gambler Key plays the odds in naming Brook captain

Rob Key once played poker until 3am with the late great Shane Warne.

Next week he will celebrate three years in the role of managing director of England men's cricket - a period where he has rarely been adverse to a gamble.

A fiery all-rounder picked as captain, a Test coach appointed who had never led in the red-ball game and a host of youngsters given their debuts despite limited domestic records.

However, Key has played the odds in appointing Harry Brook as white-ball captain. There is a reason you are told to never risk more than you can afford to lose.

Giving the job to Ben Stokes, as Key suggested he might, would have been the equivalent to carefully building a profit across a night at the roulette table, only to throw your earnings on a lucky number with closing time in sight.

England have been building for this winter's Ashes series ever since Key and Stokes took post.

Key has wisely decided that, with the first Test in Perth seven months away, adding the white-ball captaincy to his injury-ravaged talisman's workload was one risk he was not willing to take.

Once he did so, Brook was always the obvious choice to replace Jos Buttler.

Domestic captains outside of the current XI, the likes of Sam Billings or James Vince, were considered but a captain must be worth their place in the team.

Joe Root was not interested, others not secure enough in their position. In some ways, Brook was the only option.

In the 26-year-old Yorkshireman, England will get another captain in the image of Stokes and Brendon McCullum - their all-format, all-powerful coach.

The similarities are in style - Brook has been a leading disciple of the pair's Test revolution - and in Brook's grounding too.

His cricket education was finished at Sedbergh School but, rather than the public-school system, he learned the game at Burley-in-Wharfedale's Hodson Park - where there is a bench bearing his late grandfather's name.

Brook, like Stokes and McCullum, is street-smart - hardened by playing in Yorkshire's tough men's leagues by the age of 13 - and rough around the edges.

He is straight-talking, often a man of few words in interviews - some might say a classic Yorkshire trait.

At the Indian Premier League he said he was happy to "shut up" local fans who had been "slagging him off" and, when standing in as England skipper last year, said "who cares?" in response to criticism of English dismissals.

Key has said England's players have been guilty of "talking rubbish" in the media during their recent poor run. Honesty may be what this struggling England white-ball team needs but Brook must be wary of the scrutiny that comes with leadership.

Before Brook's debut he was described as "dumb" by Stokes, something for which the all-rounder later apologised.

His answers may be brief but do not mistake that for a lack of cricket brain.

Brook's 317 against Pakistan last year may take the headlines but one of his best innings was in the drawn 2023 Ashes series at Headingley, when he hit 75 in a chase which had to be managed with the urn on the line.

Brook, like Stokes, is a remarkably hard worker.

He was the chubby kid at Sedbergh, told he would not make a county cricketer because he was not fit enough in the field.

Brook corrected that by running in the Cumbrian fells and last year he used a break, because of the death of his grandmother, to shed pounds and became the leading fielder in the England team.

That is one area in which England's white-ball teams are trailing the best teams in the world.

The sample size is small - five matches against Australia and one season with Northern Superchargers in The Hundred - when it comes to assessing what sort of England captain Brook will be.

Still, do not expect significant change.

"It is very similar to how we want to play in Test cricket. Always looking to put the bowler under pressure and make them change," he said during that Australia series, when asked how he wanted the 50-over side to play.

Brook admitted himself he was "frantic" at the start of that series but overall, despite England losing 3-2 to the world champions, he largely impressed.

He showed imagination in a win at Chester-le-Street where Cameron Green was caught by a fielder in an unusual position behind the non-striking batter, and bowler Jacob Bethell immediately turned to celebrate in Brook's direction.

Key will also hope captaincy brings the best of Brook the white-ball player.

Brook scored 110 in that win at Durham, which remains his only international white-ball century despite all of his obvious talent.

He was not the only England batter to struggle, but a difficult time in the Champions Trophy and the tour of India that preceded it leaves him with 188 runs across 11 white-ball innings at an average of 17.09 this year.

The biggest negative of appointing Brook is the workload it adds to one of England's busiest players as a Test, 50-over and T20 mainstay.

England's schedule is packed, with 11 Tests, nine one-day internationals and 12 T20s before the end of the Ashes in January.

There is then a T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka to follow in late February and March, where Brook will lead on the global stage for the first time.

For now at least, England's plan is that he will play everything.

There are no direct clashes in fixtures while he is young, does not have children and has had a decent break - having skipped this year's Indian Premier League.

It is not without risk. A burnt-out Brook would hurt England almost as much as an injury to Stokes in Australia.

For Key, though, this one is a gamble worth taking.