Ben Stokes: The last three months has been the hardest of my England captaincy

The tourists were outplayed for the most part and fell to a heavy 4-1 defeat Down Under, with England's preparation coming under scrutiny.

There have also been questions about the squad's off-field antics, with management constantly having to bat off news about an excessive drinking culture.

"Being England captain is the greatest honour a player can be given and I do not take it for granted," Stokes wrote in a letter addressed to England supporters.

"It has its highs and it has its lows, it makes you want to smile, it makes you want to cry. It completely and utterly consumes you and feels like it's the only thing in your life at times.

"The last three months has without a doubt been the hardest period of my captaincy journey, it's tested me in so many different ways and I'm sure every other captain has gone through this as well."

The ECB have confirmed that Stokes will continue as skipper ahead of the home summer while head coach Brendon McCullum and director of cricket Rob Key will also keep their jobs.

Stokes added: "Baz, Rob and myself have the passion and desire to take this team forward, we are going to give you everything we have, we know we made mistakes along the way and we have learnt from those mistakes, you learn more from failure than success.

"We all appreciate every single person who supports us. We do what we do for many reasons but one of those reasons is to bring our supporters and fans happiness and a sense of pride and we will aim to do those things as much as we can in the future. See you all in June for the start of the Test Match summer."

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