Driving Ambition - My Autobiography

by Andrew Strauss

  By and large, I kept myself to myself and refused to play his games, but Fletcher’s warning about my technique came back to bite me. The old-school theory of playing with the spin was getting me into trouble against him. The drift he managed to get on the ball meant that by looking to hit him on the leg side, I was often hitting across the line of balls that were well wide of off stump but were straightening back to hit the stumps. The odds weren’t in my favour.

  Hours of work in the nets, and against Merlyn, a prototype spin-bowling machine that is now commonplace in every county indoor school, under Fletcher’s expert tutelage allowed me to start hitting the ball back to where it came from a little more and saved me from the ignominy of being Warne’s next bunny. A century on a turning wicket at Old Trafford in the drawn third Test match had finally proved to me that I could contend with him, although the number of times I got out to him over this and subsequent series displayed that I would never be completely comfortable against his bag of tricks.

  Looking back, I suppose I feel fortunate to have been able to lock horns with the player I regard as the best bowler to grace a cricket pitch, certainly in my time and perhaps ever. You can say what you like about Shane Warne the man, but as a bowler he was unparalleled, a superb exponent of the hardest art in bowling.

  Thankfully, despite our precarious position on the first day of that final Test match, the wicket remained true and I was able to compile a crucial partnership with Andrew Flintoff to help get us to a position of comparative safety, and just after tea a leg-side flick off Brett Lee brought up my most important century for England.

  As I soaked up the applause, I was genuinely proud of myself in a way that was never to be repeated. Maybe it was the Australian cricket team’s undoubted quality; perhaps it was the fact that I had stepped up to save my team under pressure. I am not sure what made me feel that way, but I still look back at that moment, with my helmet off, sweat dripping down my face, staring up at all the grateful English supporters at The Oval that day, as my best experience as an England batsman.

  Perhaps ironically, that first-day century was completely overshadowed by Kevin Pietersen’s outrageous last-day heroics. It would be hard to argue that his adrenalin-fuelled machismo was the most sensible way to make sure that we were able to occupy the crease for the last day of the match, thus ensuring the draw we needed. However, it was Pietersen’s first demonstration on the Test scene that he was a very special talent, who, unbridled by team directives or predetermined methods, could play in a way of which others were simply incapable. The level of his self-confidence, the quality of the stroke play and the sheer boldness of his innings still stick in my mind today. It was brilliance at a time when brilliance was demanded and required. Above all, it made us all heroes.

  Australia in England 2005 – The Ashes

  1st Test. Lord’s, London. 21–24 July 2005

  Australia 190 (S.J. Harmison 5–43) and 384 (M.J. Clarke 91, D.R. Martyn 65, S.M. Katich 67)

  England 155 (K.P. Pietersen 57, A.J. Strauss 2; G.D. McGrath 5–53) and 180 (K.P. Pietersen 64, M.E. Trescothick 44, A.J. Strauss 37; G.D. McGrath 4–29)

  Australia won by 239 runs.

  2nd Test. Edgbaston, Birmingham. 4–7 August 2005

  England 407 (M.E. Trescothick 90, K.P. Pietersen 71, A. Flintoff 68, A.J. Strauss 48; S.K. Warne 4–116) and 182 (A. Flintoff 73, A.J. Strauss 6; S.K. Warne 6–46, B. Lee 4–82)

  Australia 308 (J.L. Langer 82, R.T. Ponting 61; A. Flintoff 3–52) and 279 (B. Lee 43*; A. Flintoff 4–79)

  England won by 2 runs.

  3rd Test. Old Trafford, Manchester. 11–15 August 2005

  England 444 (M.P. Vaughan 166, M.E. Trescothick 63, I.R. Bell 59, A.J. Strauss 6; S.K. Warne 4–99, B. Lee 4–100) and 280–6 dec (A.J. Strauss 106, I.R. Bell 65; G.D. McGrath 5–115)

  Australia 302 (S.K. Warne 90; S.P. Jones 6–53) and 371–9 (R.T. Ponting 156; A. Flintoff 4–71)

  Match drawn.

  4th Test. Trent Bridge, Nottingham. 25–28 August 2005

  England 477 (A. Flintoff 102, G.O. Jones 85, M.E. Trescothick 65, M.P. Vaughan 58, A.J. Strauss 35; S.K. Warne 4–102) and 129–7 (A.J. Strauss 23; S.K. Warne 4–31)

  Australia 218 (B. Lee 47, S.M. Katich 45; S.P. Jones 5–44) and 387 (f/o) (J.L. Langer 61, S.M. Katich 59, M.J. Clarke 56)

  England won by 3 wickets.

  5th Test. The Oval, London. 8–12 September 2005

  England 373 (A.J. Strauss 129, A. Flintoff 72; S.K. Warne 6–122) and 335 (K.P. Pietersen 158, A.F. Giles 59, A.J. Strauss 1; S.K. Warne 6–124)

  Australia 367 (M.L. Hayden 138, J.L. Langer 105; Flintoff 5–78, M.J. Hoggard 4–97) and 4–0

  Match drawn.

  England won the series 2–1.

  7

  DISGRACE

  I wake early to the sounds that accompany a summer morning in Australia. Birds are singing, the sun is shining and the city of Adelaide is slowly coming to life. I look out of my hotel window to see the River Torrens beneath me. The embankment is busy with early-morning strollers, joggers and cyclists taking advantage of the relative coolness of the early hours. The forecast is for another scorching-hot day, approaching 40 degrees centigrade. On the far side of the river, I can make out the distinctive floodlights of the Adelaide cricket ground. At that time of the morning it is completely deserted, nothing more than a serene addition to the landscape of the City of Churches.

  In less than three hours, though, the scene will be completely transformed. Thousands of home fans, from all corners of South Australia, will make their way to the ground, hoping that their team might just be able to force a result in the second Test match of the 2006–07 Ashes. In addition, almost as many English travelling fans are likely to be heading to the huge grass bank on the far side of the ground. They are no doubt excited about the prospect of a day of Barmy Army songs, copious amounts of beer and the obligatory sunburn. They are also expecting their team to bat at least till teatime to ensure a well-earned draw.

  I am a little jaded after four days of intense Ashes cricket in uncomfortable heat, but I am also feeling the best I have for a long time about the team and the state of my own game. Having surrendered the first Test in Brisbane relatively meekly, we need to show everyone that we aren’t going to be a pushover for the rest of the series. A double hundred by Paul Collingwood and a sublime century from Kevin Pietersen saw us to a formidable first-innings total of 551. Australia rallied in reply, getting close to our score on the back of a Ricky Ponting hundred, but by ending the fourth day at 59–1 in our second innings, we have overcome the potentially difficult new-ball spell from McGrath and Lee.

  I am 31 not out overnight, my first contribution to the series of any size after failures in Brisbane, and I am feeling much perkier about my ability to play on the bouncy wickets of Australia. I hope that today will bring a sizeable score, a winning draw and some real momentum going into the potentially tricky Perth Test match.

  Shortly before 11 a.m., I make my way down the steps from the players’ viewing gallery with my partner Ian Bell, following the Australian fielders onto the ground. ‘What a wonderful day to play Test cricket,’ I tell myself as I survey the cloudless sky, the full house of support and the beautiful backdrop of the Adelaide Oval, one of my favourite grounds.

  For the first twenty minutes of play, everything seems to go pretty much according to plan. Ian Bell and I are playing ourselves back in, and although we aren’t scoring a significant number of runs, there are few moments to worry the travelling fans unduly.

  After another six fruitless overs, I am beginning to get concerned. The Aussies have managed to get the ball reversing quite considerably, and the combination of Stuart Clark, with his unerring accuracy, at one end and the ever-present threat of Shane Warne at the other is slowly strangling any scoring intent from Bell and myself. I know that if we keep this up for too long, the pressure will build on us and also on those waiting in the dressing room.

  I try to use my feet against
Warne, hoping to change his length a little and provide some scoring opportunities. Every time I do, he seems to read my plans and brings his length back. I have no other way of scoring, so I keep to the plan. As he delivers the ball once more I move down the wicket, and once more the ball is agonisingly short of a length to attack. I stick out my pad and bat together, knowing that it is impossible to be out lbw so far down the wicket. The ball hits the pad and balloons to the short-leg fielder. There is a half-hearted appeal from Adam Gilchrist behind the stumps and Matthew Hayden, the slip fielder. It goes without saying that Warne is appealing for a potential bat-pad catch, but then he appeals for everything.

  I make sure that I get back into my ground before turning towards the umpire, Steve Bucknor, fully expecting to see his head shaking vigorously, as is his habit when he rules a decision not out. Instead, I know I am in trouble. He hasn’t moved yet, but I can see that he is running through the computations in his head. The dreaded moment comes seconds later as he raises his finger. I have been given out caught. There will be no challenge from me – this is before the introduction of DRS. All I can do is head back to the pavilion to curse my bad luck.

  I spend the best part of half an hour with my head in my hands down in the dungeon of a dressing room. I can’t see the play continuing. There are no windows and the TV is switched off. All the other players are up in the viewing gallery, two storeys above me. From the complete silence of the crowd, however, I can tell that the scoreboard is not ticking over. We are still being strangled. Soon, a great roar erupts. Ian Bell has been needlessly run out attempting a risky single. He is quickly followed by Kevin Pietersen, bowled around his legs by Warne. The situation is getting out of hand. The momentum is swinging violently against us and we desperately need a couple of players to stand up and stem the tide.

  Paul Collingwood, fresh from his Herculean first-innings double century, stands firm. Around him, however, no player displays any real permanence at the wicket. Flintoff nicks off, Geraint Jones follows and the English players and supporters alike are suddenly staring at a train wreck. Unless something changes very quickly, we are about to pull off one of the greatest chokes in Ashes history.

  As is so often the case when momentum changes so violently, the end of our innings seems inevitable. Giles, Harmison, Hoggard and Anderson all succumb to the mastery of Warne and McGrath. Australia have over a session to chase down the modest total of 168. From the moment that Justin Langer slogs the second ball from Matthew Hoggard over midwicket for four, the result is a foregone conclusion. There is no way that we will be able to restrict the Australian scoring rate enough to hold out for a draw. Hayden, Ponting and Hussey all knock nails in our coffin with some scintillating stroke play.

  Finally, with more than three overs left in the match, Mike Hussey hits the boundary that wins the game for Australia. The home fans are ecstatic, having witnessed one of the great Test match wins. The Australian players are jumping up and down celebrating their stunning performance. In contrast, the English fans are in shock. They can’t believe what they have just witnessed. In their minds, the series is already over. There is no way back from 2–0 down after such a confidence-sapping performance.

  In our dressing room there is a deathly silence. Everyone is sitting in their seats, accompanied by the debris from five hard days of Test cricket. Dirty kit is strewn all over the floor. Dozens of empty Powerade bottles are lying on the benches, constant reminders of the graft we have been through in the heat. None of us, though, have anything to show for it. We have lost. We have capitulated. We have choked. We have blown our chances of winning in Australia. It is over.

  Two months earlier the defence of the Ashes, so wondrously won in 2005, had got off to the worst possible start when our captain, Michael Vaughan, was ruled out of the series with his recurrent knee injury. As he’d spent the whole of the previous summer injured, the selectors had at least had a little time to prepare for life without Vaughan. Unfortunately, Andrew Flintoff, his unofficial deputy, had injured himself in the course of the three-Test series against Sri Lanka and so the final series of the summer of 2006, against Pakistan, was captained by the deputy’s deputy – me.

  After a 3–0 series win, the succession plan had clearly been thrown into doubt. Some of the media were speculating about Flintoff’s suitability for the job, citing the difficulties experienced by England’s last all-round talisman, Ian Botham. On the other hand, there was plenty of talk about Flintoff’s ability to inspire the team, leading from the front. Most people weren’t really talking too much about the alternative. I was seen as the safe, slightly uninspired choice, who would probably do a decent job but nothing more. The debate centred around Flintoff, not me.

  I have to say that I felt distinctly uncomfortable at the thought of usurping Flintoff from what he regarded as his rightful place. I definitely thought I had the capability and credentials to lead the team, having captained Middlesex and got used to the idea of captaining England during the summer. However, it was clear that Flintoff desperately wanted to do the job. He was next in line and it was not as though we were best buddies in the side. If he was overlooked, it would have been hard for him not to see it as a slap in the face. The selectors, in effect, would have been killing off his chances of leading his country without really giving him the opportunity to show whether he was up to it or not.

  At the time, whenever I thought about the idea of captaining the side in the Ashes, the initial excitement was always followed by more than a little dread at the thought of dealing with the immense baggage that would be created if Flintoff was not made captain. It was perhaps this feeling that prevented me from stating my case more forcibly when Duncan Fletcher asked me if I wanted the job. ‘You have seen us both captain the side,’ I replied. ‘It is up to you to decide.’ I am sure he was looking for me to put forward a stronger argument.

  The issue was finally resolved when we were going through our annual fitness-testing up at the national academy in Loughborough. It was always a tough day, with the obvious tests – VO2 max, sprint test and strength tests – being complemented by a number of additional scans. Eyes, heart, skin cancer, body composition (otherwise known as the fat test), injuries, flexibility and general well-being were all checked. At the end of the session, Duncan called me into one of the meeting rooms on the top floor of the building.

  ‘Straussy, the selectors met yesterday to discuss who was going to captain the side to Australia. We have decided to give Flintoff the job. There are a number of reasons for this that I can’t go into at this stage, but I think that the decision might be good for you in the long term.’ Fletcher delivered my fate in his usual unemotional manner.

  ‘I think you have made the wrong decision,’ I replied, ‘but of course I will support Freddie as much as I can.’ And that was that. There was nothing more to discuss.

  Looking back at the Ashes series that followed, when we got absolutely thumped 5–0, many people jumped to the conclusion that it was the decision to make Flintoff captain that sealed our fate. I don’t subscribe to that point of view in the slightest. The truth was that they were a far better side than us, especially in their own conditions. Even with our side from 2005 fully intact and firing on all cylinders, I think we would have struggled to win. The Australians were on their home patch, their ranks filled with some of the greatest cricketers ever to play the game, and they were hell-bent on revenge for 2005.

  In contrast, we had lost our captain to injury. Marcus Trescothick, in my opinion one of the great England openers, had been forced to return home with a recurrence of his panic attacks and depression. Ashley Giles was feeling his way back after long-term injury, and Steve Harmison, one of our talismans in 2005, was struggling to hit the cut strip, as he demonstrated with the first ball of the series. We weren’t in any position to win that series, no matter who was leading the side.

  What became apparent over the course of an arduous tour, which consisted of five Test matches followed by a lo
ng ODI tri-series with the hosts and New Zealand, was that it was vitally important for the coach and the captain to see eye to eye. The relationship between Freddie Flintoff and Duncan Fletcher had always been a fraught one. Flintoff had never reacted well to authority, and Duncan had just about resigned himself to the fact that Flintoff was never going to toe the party line. As long as Freddie kept performing, then all was just about OK, but by the time Flintoff was made captain, they really didn’t speak very much. In some ways, it was very similar to the situation with Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores some years later.

  In that regard, I found it strange that Fletcher opted to appoint Flintoff captain for the tour. Perhaps he saw it as a way of bringing Flintoff into the bosom of the side, allowing him to appreciate how difficult a job it was and then hoping that it would give him a greater sense of responsibility.

  In any event, it didn’t work. As the tour progressed, Fletcher and Flintoff became more and more distant from each other. The players, who were almost without exception struggling with poor form and the ignominy of being humiliated by a far better side, tended to stick their heads in the sand and do their best to make sure they weren’t the ones who were going to get dropped.

  In fact, the entire three-month tour was, without doubt, my lowest moment as an England cricketer. It started with great anticipation and expectation, but once we had been defeated in Adelaide, a dark cloud hung over us for the next two months. We knew we weren’t playing well, the media knew we weren’t playing well – and the thousands of England fans who had come over to support us were seething at our incompetence.