Driving Ambition - My Autobiography

by Andrew Strauss

  The final days before the series resounded to a chorus of ‘good lucks’, and ‘you can do its’, as well as all the usual pre-series media build-up. Having played Australia in seven ODIs before the start of the Test series, the players from both sides were beginning to tire of all the Ashes hype and were keen to get on with it.

  My diary entry from 20 July 2005 sums up my feelings pretty well.

  So here it is. The Ashes starts tomorrow, and judging by all the media and texts I have been getting, it looks like a lot of people think that this is quite important! In some ways it feels like my debut again – a step into the unknown, and a new challenge. I get goose bumps just thinking about going out there tomorrow. It is going to be an atmosphere like no other … It is tempting to let my mind wonder how good it would be to do well in this series, and also how devastating it could be if things don’t go well.

  That was the prospect for all of us. The stakes were high. Win, and be a hero. Lose, or perform badly personally, and all that hope and expectation could come crashing down, submerging you and your reputation in a tidal wave of broken dreams.

  I have many memories of that first Test match at Lord’s in July 2005, my introduction to Ashes cricket, but they are strangely brief. It is as if they are a series of pictures, rather than a continuous movie. I suppose it is similar to the memories you might get if you attempt a bungee jump or white-water rafting. The adrenalin means that you are so focused on what is happening at the time that your mind struggles to compute it all.

  The first memory that sticks in my mind is that of Ricky Ponting getting hit on the grille of his helmet by a ball from Steve Harmison. It was a huge psychological as well as physical blow. Here was the world’s greatest puller of the ball getting hurried up by our opening bowler, who was rated the number-one bowler in the world at the time. All the talk in the team room before the game had centred on us never taking a backward step against the Aussies. We had to show that we weren’t going to be intimidated and were ready to give as good as we got. I remember Duncan Fletcher equating it to standing up to the schoolyard bully. That perhaps explains why none of us went to check that Ponting was OK as the blood dripped from his cheek. We were a set of gladiators in the amphitheatre and compassion was not an emotion we were prepared to display. Having said that, however, I think we all have regrets that we didn’t go and check on him. It was out of character for all of us. We had got too caught up in the moment, too emotional, and we showed it then. Perhaps we also displayed it again later that day when we came to bat.

  Another vivid memory I have is of walking through the Long Room at Lord’s on my way out to bat with Marcus Trescothick. We had bowled Australia out for 190, so the members were clearly sensing a famous victory and the reception was mind-blowing. Never have I seen so much passion on so many faces as we walked through that crowded room. This was about more than cricket; this was about England and Australia, and the complicated relationship between the two countries. For more than a decade English sports fans had had to endure the embarrassment of Australia, a much smaller nation, beating us at just about every sport going. Now, retribution was in the air.

  Barely forty minutes later, as Andrew Flintoff had his off stump flattened to leave us on 21–5, there was an eerie silence in the ground. There wasn’t even the dull murmur of disappointed whispering. The crowd were in shock. Their enthusiasm had collapsed under the weight of Glenn McGrath’s unerring accuracy and they were forced to concede that their expectations had once again been misplaced.

  We were in a similar state in the dressing room. For the first four and a half hours of the day, we had traded blows with this mighty Australian side, largely dominating, thanks to some intimidatory bowling from Harmison and Flintoff in particular. The final hour, though, had reminded us all of our frailties. It was no surprise that the nemesis, once again, was Glenn McGrath, who had managed to back up his outrageous pre-series 5–0 prediction with some scintillating bowling.

  On the surface, there didn’t seem to be too much to worry about when facing McGrath. He wasn’t that quick, operating mainly within the 80–85 mph band. He generally didn’t swing the ball and was occasionally inclined to lose his rag and start chuntering to himself and others. However, his height, his ability to seam the ball both ways and his deadly accuracy made him one of the game’s greatest bowlers. His primary asset was that, like very few others in world cricket, he was able to attack and defend at the same time. Even on the flattest of wickets, it was hard to get on top of him, and there was always the threat of a ball moving off the seam just when a batsman felt settled.

  It would be wrong, though, to confuse his accuracy with being one-dimensional. Anyone who saw him play ODI cricket had to marvel at his ability to bowl yorkers under pressure. His record in the subcontinent spoke volumes about his ability to reverse-swing the ball, and on a fast and bouncy wicket his short ball was deceptively hostile and quick.

  His secret, I suppose, was that he had all the tools in his armoury but only used them when he needed them. If he didn’t, he merely stuck to plan A, which was to hit a length hard on off stump, relying on the combination of his height and any moisture in the wicket to get movement. That combination was more than good enough for most international players. Nothing demonstrated it more than our score of 92–7 at the end of the first day of the 2005 series.

  * * *

  The final memory I have of the game is the reception the Australian players gave me as I came out to bat in the second innings. We had been set an unlikely 420 to win and we all knew that something akin to a miracle was needed. That, however, was little more than a subplot in the drama between the Australian team and this young, naive England opening batsman.

  The day before, Damien Martyn had been given out lbw for a very well-constructed 65 but was clearly unhappy with the decision. He remonstrated with the umpire and I, clearly too pumped with emotion at the time, told him to ‘---- off back to the pavilion’ on my way past to congratulate the bowler, Steve Harmison. It was very much out of character for me, but after seeing the Aussies operate during the ODI series, I was getting increasingly frustrated by the way they walked around as if they owned the place.

  That night, Kevin Pietersen, who despite being on debut had already struck up a chummy relationship with Shane Warne, informed me that the Aussies were hacked off with me for getting stuck into one of their players. According to him, they were ‘going to let me have it in the second innings’.

  And so they did. I was met with a chorus of abuse as I prepared to face the new ball. ‘You aren’t so loud now, are you?’ came from the direction of the slip cordon. ‘Come on, Binga, knock this -----’s head off,’ came another shout from behind me as Brett Lee started his run-up. Most of it was pretty tame really, and I probably deserved it, but I was impressed by how they all got stuck in together. That, in my mind, was the real strength of that Australian side. They may not have been the best of mates off the field, but on it they came together in the common cause, always probing for opposition weaknesses, searching for an opening. When they found it, they rarely let go.

  Overall, I was quite happy about the way I managed to contend with the verbal barrage. It seemed to concentrate my mind and allow me to focus on the ball, rather than any technical worries. The 37 I scored in that second innings was hardly match-turning, and my dismissal precipitated the inevitable slide to defeat, but at least in my mind I believed that I could mix it with the Aussies.

  We went away to lick our wounds and learn the lessons from the game, knowing that defeat in the next Test, at Edgbaston, would almost certainly consign our latest attempt to regain the Ashes to the same graveyard as so many other English Ashes campaigns.

  The Test match at Edgbaston that followed has gone down in English cricketing folklore as one of the greatest Test matches ever. It was a game full of drama and intrigue. From the moment that Glenn McGrath twisted his ankle just before the toss, right through to the gloved leg-side dismissal of Michael
Kasprowicz that concluded the game, it was one of those contests you couldn’t take your eyes off. It had everything.

  The audacious way in which we started the game, scoring 400 runs in less than eighty overs, was a direct reaction to the defeat at Lord’s. In the days leading up to the second Test, all the conversation had been about how badly we had let ourselves down with the bat in the first, and how important it was to go out there, look the Aussies in the eye and take the game to them. If we were going to go down, it would be in a blaze of glory.

  Of course, it is always easier to come up with fighting talk in the safety of a dressing room than it is out in the middle against some of the best bowlers in the world. Great credit for our performance has to go to Michael Vaughan, who did much to instil the belief in us that we were capable of slugging it out with the Aussies, but also to Marcus Trescothick, Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff. They, more than any others, actually went out there and demonstrated what we had been talking about in our team meetings.

  Some of the stroke play of Pietersen and Flintoff against Lee and Warne was outrageous. From afar, it almost looked as if they were trying to outdo each other in how far they could hit the ball, as well as in the boldness of their shot selection. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of competition going on between the two alpha males in the England cricket team. Regardless, it was scintillating to watch and it forced Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain, to deal with a scenario that he and his team had rarely had to contend with before.

  That Edgbaston Test, in my opinion, saw Andrew Flintoff’s finest performance in an England shirt. His first-innings 68 was followed by a vitally important counter-attacking 73 in the second innings, when we had our backs to the wall at 72–5. His accurate and aggressive bowling had a big impact on the outcome of the match, and his spell against Langer and Ponting at the start of the Australian innings must go down as one of the most lethal I have witnessed. And after all that, he had the presence of mind to get down on his haunches and console Brett Lee when the game was finally won.

  ‘Freddie’ was a strangely contradictory character. A salt-of-the-earth lad from Preston, who was media-savvy enough to make sure he was always drinking the right brand of energy drink when the cameras were focused on him. The ultimate team man, who would bowl himself into the ground to try and win a match but on taking a wicket was prone to doing Jesus poses, mouthing his own name, while his team-mates tried to celebrate alongside him. An up-and-at-them cricketer, full of aggressive intent, but also a character prone to self-doubt and insecurity.

  I don’t suppose we were ever likely to be bosom buddies. We saw the world too differently. He no doubt thought of me as too much of a goody-two-shoes, too aligned with Vaughan and Fletcher, whereas he was much more of an anti-establishment figure, tending to court the disaffected in the side. Yet I admired him greatly for two reasons.

  First, he has one of those magnetic personalities that can light up any room. People take notice of him, and at his best on the cricket field he was able to use that to ignite the entire crowd behind the England cause. Many of my most electrifying moments on the pitch occurred when he was either straining his every sinew to take a wicket, or was whacking the likes of Brett Lee around the ground.

  Secondly, I was always impressed by how loyal and generous he was to his friends. While he certainly wouldn’t go out of his way to help everyone, he would do absolutely anything for his mates, and I am sure that the likes of Steve Harmison would struggle to find anyone more genuinely willing to stand up for them than Fred.

  What was without doubt was that he was capable of great things on a cricket pitch. He was a player that opposition teams genuinely feared. As a bowler, his immense stature, awkward bounce and bustling intent made him incredibly intimidating, and left-handers, in particular, always struggled with his round-the-wicket spells. I am glad I didn’t have to face him in a Test match.

  With the bat, his power and willingness to take on bowlers made him seriously threatening. Perhaps he wasn’t able to do it often enough, in the way that Kevin Pietersen has, to be judged as genuinely world-class with the willow. He was good enough, though, and in combination with his bowling and high-quality slip-catching, he was rightly seen as one of England’s greatest all-rounders. On his good days, as at Edgbaston in 2005, he seemed able to bend the will of the gods in his favour and turn games on their heads. Very few are capable of that, and his team-mates in that fateful Test will always be grateful.

  Perhaps my abiding memory of the Edgbaston game was sitting in the dressing room afterwards, feeling absolutely drained of all energy. The nerves, the emotion and the anguish that accompanied our two-run victory left me completely shattered, and I was not alone. The topsy-turvy nature of the game, where one side dominated, only for the other to come back into the game, continued right to the last. Just when we were beginning to feel we were about to be a part of English cricket’s greatest choke, Steve Harmison’s desperate short ball found the glove of Michael Kasprowicz’s bottom hand, and England were back in the series.

  I have always felt that the best innings I ever played for England in a Test match took place at The Oval in 2005 in the fifth Test. There are a few others that came close. The hundred at Lord’s in 2009 against Australia, my redeeming century in Napier against New Zealand in 2008 and the second-innings century in Brisbane in 2010 on the back of a first-innings duck spring to mind. However, I am proudest of that innings at The Oval because of what was at stake.

  As we headed into the final Test with a 2–1 lead in the series, the expectation of English cricket supporters had reached a crescendo. It was impossible to think about anything other than the five days ahead of us and we all knew that this could be our moment. Seize it, and we would all remember the victory for the rest of our lives. On the other hand, if we succumbed to the pressure and bottled it in front of an expectant nation, I don’t think we would ever have been forgiven. It may sound over-dramatic, but that is how we felt.

  I remember Ashley Giles appearing in the home dressing room at The Oval on the morning of the first day looking completely spent. The dark circles under his eyes and haunted expression on his face revealed his obvious stress.

  ‘Gilo, you look terrible, mate,’ I said, only partly in jest.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ he replied. ‘I haven’t slept for the past seven weeks.’

  ‘You aren’t the only one,’ I said, and looking around at the rest of the lads nodding their heads, it was clear that we had all been going through the same anguish in silence.

  I have never been more nervous walking out to bat than on that day with Marcus Trescothick. Our destiny was on the line, and on a beautiful sunny day in September, it was our job to build the foundation for our ultimate victory. Perhaps fuelled by adrenalin, we got off to a rollicking start against the seamers on an unresponsive Oval surface, until the team was pegged back by the brilliance of Shane Warne, not for the first time. Four quick wickets transformed our steady start from 82–0 to 131–4, and once again the pressure weighed heavily on my shoulders.

  Shane Warne had been something of a bogeyman for us all during the series. For me in particular, playing against him for the first time in a Test series, he had proved quite a handful. Like any armchair cricket fan, I had watched him mesmerise English batsmen for a decade from his infamous ‘Gatting’ ball at Old Trafford in 1993, but aside from facing him a couple of times in county cricket, I had no real idea of what it would be like to do battle with him in an Ashes series. I felt reasonably confident that I would do all right, given that I thought I had played leg spin well in the past, so it was perhaps a mixture of stubbornness and naivety that allowed me to dismiss Duncan Fletcher’s gentle warning that ‘You may have to work a bit on your technique against Warne’ as nothing more than Duncan trying to keep me on my toes. I was in for a rude awakening.

  When you watch Warne on television, it is easy to assess the technical challenges. You can see the wizardr
y of his bowling. The subtle variations, as well as the unerring accuracy, are on display. What you can’t appreciate, however, is how much of a role his personality, and gamesmanship, play in proceedings. I am not surprised that he has gone on to play poker since retirement, because I always felt that he was trying to look into my psyche in the middle, figuring out what I was thinking by observing my body language and facial expressions – exactly as a poker player does. He is famous for his sledging, of course, but I think that those who put his wicket-taking ability down to having a quick wit and foul mouth are missing the point. He would say all manner of things to you in the middle, but I always had the impression that really he was probing to see how you reacted to what he was saying.

  For instance, after I had struggled against him early in the series, he started calling me ‘Daryll’ after Daryll Cullinan, who had been his ‘bunny’ in years past. Cullinan never got a run against Warne. As much as I hated being compared to Cullinan by Warne (secretly, I was worried that there was more than a grain of truth in his assessment), I could also see that he was goading me. By saying it, he was tempting me to come out of my shell and try to dominate him – taking matters into my own hands to rid myself of the label. But he was also looking for signs that I was going to cower and submit to his superiority. If he ever reached a stage where he could genuinely intimidate a batsman, then the battle was already won.