When Andrew Strauss hit his career-saving hundred against New Zealand we were a bit worried. It’d be best if you read that article, but if you really can’t be bothered we’ll try and bluntly summarise.

New Zealand aren’t one of the better Test sides and Andrew Strauss’s performances might have been misleading. Same for Tim Ambrose (with the bat).

Before the New Zealand tour Strauss had been averaging in the 20s for about a year. Unless he has a great innings today, he’ll have averaged in the 20s again in this series. Did anything change in the meantime? We’re not damning him, but we are wondering.

Same with Tim Ambrose. It seems like England wicketkeepers’ Test lifespans just depend on who they play against.

We’d like to think that England’s selectors have some great insight and identify players accordingly, but it all seems a bit ’suck it and see’. That approach wastes Test experience. Test experience is a valuable commodity.

Tags: Andrew Strauss, England, Tim Ambrose by King Cricket
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Fortunate to be given the opportunity to do so, Andrew Strauss saved his Test career with a whopping 177 in the third and final Test of the tour of New Zealand. Since then, he’s hit 63, 60 and now 106 and suddenly there doesn’t seem to be much of a problem. Such is cricket.

This was an almighty fightback by England - one we didn’t think they were capable of. They’ve been a slightly inspid outfit of late, inclined towards mediocrity, but for the last four sessions of this Test, they were sublime. That shouldn’t obscure the unpalatable truths that were apparent on Sunday morning though.

England’s middle order seems to be providing ever-dwindling returns. It seems like someone’s going to go before too long. Paul Collingwood, while currently the one-day captain, has some surgery in the offing and would appear to be bottom of the pile.

England’s seamers lack a bit of pace. It’s the fashion to say that bowling’s all about experience and guile now - largely thanks to Ryan Sidebottom - but just as the previous obsession with pace was misguided, so this is. Pace is still an attribute - one that should be allied to accuracy and intelligence.

We’d also like to have a minor pop at the sacred cow that is Stuart Broad. We’ve written before about how we want Stuart Broad in the England team for years to come, but his batting competence and bowling promise seems to be obscuring the simple fact that at present he’s not taking too many wickets - 12 at 47 in five Tests, to be precise.

We’re not saying drop him by any means. We’re saying: ‘Get some wickets, Stuart’. With only four bowlers, that’s mandatory. He’s not the third best English seam bowler and he needs to get closer to being that.

England v New Zealand, second Test at Old Trafford - day four
New Zealand 381 all out (Ross Taylor 154 not out, Jamie How 64, Kyle Mills 57, James Anderson 4-118)
England 202 (Andrew Strauss 60, Daniel Vettori 5-66, Iain O’Brien 3-49
New Zealand 114 all out (Monty Panesar 6-37)
England 293-4 (Andrew Strauss 106)
England win

Tags: Andrew Strauss, England, New Zealand by King Cricket
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Andrew Strauss hit 163 off 130 balls for Middlesex against Surrey in the Friends Provident Trophy yesterday. Strauss seems to have remembered what hundreds are and is now getting them in boundaries: 23 fours and four sixes equals 116.

This isn’t great news for Rob Key, who even if a top order batsmen were dropped, must still be behind Owais Shah - who himself made 55 not out alongside Strauss.

Key’s in England’s ‘Performance Squad’ though, which means that England’s selectors are sort of thinking about him. They certainly know his name, at any rate, so that’s good. All our anonymous phone calls and ‘gifts’ must be making an impact.

Tags: Andrew Strauss, England, county cricket by King Cricket
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There are two sides to this, being as we’re English, we’re first going to concentrate on the negative, because that’s our knee-jerk response when our side have made a comprehensive fightback and put themselves in total control of a Test match.

Andrew Strauss shouldn’t have been playing. He shouldn’t have been given the opportunity to hit a hundred. There’s a very real chance that all this innings has done is blind people to Strauss’s poor batting and given him a stay of execution. These runs were made on a flat pitch against a weakened version of what would ordinarily be one of the weaker Test bowling attacks, even when it’s fully-staffed.

This summer, Strauss is likely to find himself near the top of England’s order facing Dale Steyn, currently one of the best fast bowlers in the world. If he’s still fundamentally the same player, playing the same way as he has been doing for the last year or so, he’ll get found out and we’ll be in exactly the same situation that we were at the same time the previous summer and a year of Test experience will have been denied to his replacement.

On the other hand, here is a batsman who’d had a host of last chances and had found himself on the last of those last chances needing a hundred. And he got one.

Batting in a big match isn’t the same as batting in a minor match, even if you face the same bowling. For Strauss personally, this was unquestionably a big match. We can’t know for certain, but his entire Test and therefore cricketing career seemed to hang on this one innings. That would put us on edge.

At this point, the man comes out and hits a hundred. Then, when he’s hit his hundred and (understandably) jumped around like a bit of a loon, he puts his helmet back on and continues, working his way to 173 not out by the close of play.

We’re far from convinced about Strauss for the reasons in the first half of today’s update, but we’re pretty delighted to start filling in the ‘pros’ column with such solid stuff.

New Zealand v England, third Test at Napier - day three
England 253 (Kevin Pietersen 129, Tim Southee 5-55)
New Zealand 168 (Stephen Fleming 59, Ryan Sidebottom 7-47, Stuart Broad 3-54)
England 416-5 (Andrew Strauss 173 not out, Ian Bell 110, Daniel Vettori 3-135)

Tags: Andrew Strauss, England, New Zealand by King Cricket
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Ceci believes that Andrew Strauss will “bring an air of orderly tweediness” to the England team.

We’re of the belief that smoking a pipe is the most distinguished, gentlemanly act there is and Ceci has provided us with this just that Strauss-based reassurance:

Look at that pipe. It says: ‘Enough of this nonsense. I’m here to GET THE JOB DONE.’

Tags: Andrew Strauss by King Cricket
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It’d be better for everyone if Andrew Strauss got dropped again. We wouldn’t have to write about him and you wouldn’t have to read about him.

Strauss retired out with 104 in the second innings of the warm-up match against a New Zealand Selection XI. Frankly, he shouldn’t have been given the opportunity to justify his place in the England team - Owais Shah should have been extended that courtesy. But having been given the chance and having taken it, Strauss can at least tell himself that he’s earned his place back.

It was a good innings considering the scrutiny he’s under, but he needn’t think he’s conquered the nerves that arise from being watched more closely than your team mates. It’s a Test match next and that’s altogether more serious. If he does well, he might be over the hump. If not, he might find that after one forward step, he’s taken ten backwards.

You can pee in front of someone, Strauss, but can you urinate under the eyes of the world? Not literally. Please don’t take that literally. No… Trousers on. Trousers on!

Tags: Andrew Strauss, England by King Cricket
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A catchy title, we think you’ll all agree.

It’s been a while since we received a picture of an animal being conspicuously indifferent to cricket - TOO LONG, in fact. There are a whole host of animals who have not yet expressed their indifference to this great game. We’ve never had a wholphin. We’ve never had a liger. Our inbox is always open.

Lemon Bella says:

“This is a picture of StraussCat being conspicuously indifferent when I told him that Strauss had been picked ahead of Shah.”

“As you can see, he put a lot of effort into showing exactly how much he didn’t care about this news.”

More animals being conspicuously indifferent to cricket

Tags: Andrew Strauss, Animals being conspicuously indifferent to cricket by King Cricket
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We don’t want to get anti-Andrew Strauss because we quite like him, but his selection in England’s team for their final warm-up worries us.

Either it’s his last opportunity to earn a place in the Test team or favouritism’s crept in. Strauss was dropped because of poor form and hasn’t recovered it. His rival for a Test place, Owais Shah, hit 96 in his last innings, averages more in first-class cricket and during the last county season averaged 70. Strauss may have more Test experience, but he’s averaged 27 since he touched down in Australia last winter.

How is Andrew Strauss ahead? Apparently he’s amiable and a good team player. Of course he is. Even we’d be good-natured and garrulous if you indulged us as England indulge Strauss.

Shah’s more prickly of course, which is hardly surprising when he’s only ever been given two one-off Tests and his current rival only has to catch a plane heading to the right country in order to win his place back.

England might be embarrassed about having had to drop a centrally-contracted player, but they should be more embarrassed about this non-meritrocratic shammery.

That’s assuming that that’s what’s happening - which isn’t necessarily the case. We just like to believe everything we read, because we’re mindless.

Tags: Andrew Strauss, England by King Cricket
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Andrew Strauss has a central contract with England so the selectors want him to play. Unfortunately however, Andrew Strauss is doing his utmost to put his reselection in doubt.

Strauss was dropped for the tour of Sri Lanka after getting out for 27 in every single one of his previous 36 Test innings. Sensing that he would have to be brought back for the New Zealand tour due to that central contract, Strauss went over there early to play for Northern Districts. This perfect preparation didn’t quite go as planned as Strauss largely failed to score any runs whatsoever until a hundred in his final match.

Now, having made anything but a persuasive case, he’s back with England and opening in the warm-ups. Cue an innings of four off 25 balls and a dismissal through hitting his own wicket - excuse our politically incorrect language, but the spazziest means of getting out that there is.

Andrew Strauss is a good batsman, but not right now. It wouldn’t be fair to other players to bring him back into the side just because that was a plan that was made a few months back. Surely the plan revolved around Strauss getting back into form? We’re not convinced that’s happened.

As it stands, there’s a fair weight of evidence that Andrew Strauss is in no fit state to open the batting for England in a Test match. He looks very much like a man trying to get out in every way imaginable - and in a few ways that aren’t.

In the same warm-up match, Alastair Cook hit 85. Did anyone else notice that he did this off 81 balls?

Tags: Andrew Strauss, England by King Cricket
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Lemon Bella has the latest on Strauss’s omission from the England squad:

“Here is a picture of StraussCat being indifferent to Strauss (again). It means you can get two posts out of the Andrew Strauss announcement, instead of just the one.”

“You’d think in this time of crisis his namesake would at least pay a bit of attention; maybe pass comment on poor umpiring decisions, but no. StraussCat is clearly more interested in sleeping and fitting himself in a box that is much too small for him.”

Animals being conspicuously indifferent to cricket on our old site

Tags: Andrew Strauss, Animals being conspicuously indifferent to cricket by King Cricket
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