Ben Stokes outlines vision for his England's Test team at Emirates Riverside unveiling

Ben Stokes will next month lead England out at Lords and, he hopes, usher in a new era for a side that has won just one game in seventeen.

It has been a long road to this point, where the 30-year-old was the clear contender to take up the role from Joe Root.

His experiences, he explains, means there is not much he won't be able to relate to with his team-mates.

He speaks candidly of continuing to seek support with his mental health, after taking a break from the game last year.

"If any of the players might be struggling with something I have been that person in the dressing-room and it’s not just younger players, but also senior players should feel like they can talk to me," he explains.

The enormity of the task that he takes on is lost on no one. Stokes jokes that when Root rang to tell his old friend that he was stepping down, the immediate reaction from his wife Clare was: "Oh no, oh no."

"I think if we're completely realistic, winning one game in 17 is nowhere near good enough for the people we have in our team," Stokes explains.

"Everyone needs to be realistic with that. What we can do is say there's only one way to go from here, which is up. I've been a part of that over the past couple of years, it's not a dig at any individual or anything like that, we know we've not been good enough, we've not played to the standard we know we can. It is about understanding that and then saying what we can do to fix it.

"I'm also understanding that things don't just happen overnight, I can't expect it to just click and all of a sudden we're No1 in a year's time, though that obviously would be fantastic," he adds.

"But I'm very excited about the role I've got to play in hopefully making the England Test team great again, it's a big goal of mine, and really looking forward to it."

There is undoubtedly a lot of pride, too.

"My dad...he followed me everywhere," Stokes says.

"He watched every game, thought he knew better than me. If he was still around and I told him, he’d be telling me how to do this job already. But yeah, he’d be very, very proud.

"This is a hugely proud moment for myself and my family as well. When I rang up and told me mam, she said she needed to go and give her five minutes before she rang me back. I do know how big a moment this is, how big a role this is and it’s more than just about me. But they’re very proud."

English cricket, or perhaps red-ball cricket in England is more precise, is in a period of transition.

Rob Key has been installed as Director of men's cricket, but with so much of the infrastructure around the team to be rebuilt, matters of selection are still some way off.

There are, though, some early clues emerging as to what Stokes' team will look like.

He has made clear, for example, that he wants James Anderson and Stuart Broad to return after the pair were left out of the West Indies tour.

"I want to win games of cricket for England and the best way to do that before a ball has been bowled is to play your best XI," Stokes said.

"Stuart Broad and James Anderson should always be considered for selection because they are the two best bowlers England have."

Stokes also confirmed that he will drop back to six in the batting order, reasoning that a better balance between his batting and bowling responsibilities is best for the team.

More broadly, he says he wants his team to play 'selfless cricket': "It’s always been my main goal playing for England – thinking about what I need to do to win this game when I have the responsibility on my shoulders – whatever stage of the game it is.

"That’s always been my main priority – personal performances, individual performances have never been at the top of my priority list.

"It’s always been the end result of the game which is winning. So I’d love to have 10 people with the same mentality as me.

"It’s a very easy thing to say but hopefully I can get the message across that this is almost a clean slate. The role that I take on starts today but massively starts on June 2nd.

"Everything that has happened before, don’t worry about it, we are starting fresh here."

Stokes will return to action with Durham on Thursday at Worcester, marking the start of his build up to that first nest next month.

Taking the captaincy is a firm statement from the all rounder, one of the most coveted players in world cricket who could take the easier route in amassing his fortune in franchise cricket.

So why isn't he?

"Test cricket has just always been number one," he says.

"Since I started playing, it’s the best format. The purest form.

"I guess one of the ways to explain why, especially if you play a five-day Test which goes right at the end, the feeling of coming off winning that game, you don’t really get from any other form.

"You don’t know what's going to happen day to day, session to session, it’s just so up and down.

"Things can change and I think that’s just what I love about it. It’s proper, proper hard work. That’s why it's called Test cricket."

This will be proper hard work, no doubt, and perhaps the biggest challenge yet in an already remarkable career.