Driving Ambition - My Autobiography

by Andrew Strauss

  With the ball, however, it took us longer to find our unique style. We had an extremely talented bowling line-up, with James Anderson being the undoubted leader. Stuart Broad was very capable of blowing away opposition teams with an inspired spell of bowling. In addition, we had Steve Finn, full of promise and pace; Chris Tremlett, who possessed awkward bounce and accuracy; as well as Tim Bresnan, who was entirely reliable, swing or no swing. The seamers were backed up by Graeme Swann, who was undoubtedly one of the world’s best spin bowlers, able to attack and defend at the same time. All we needed, then, was a method to stick to in order to put opposition teams under pressure.

  Over time, it became apparent that the method that worked best for us was one of containment. We were very fortunate that all our bowlers could hold a line or a length for long periods of time. In fact, the more we focused on it, the better they became at it. By concentrating on starving the opposition of runs, they would be able, as a unit, to create enough pressure to induce a batsman into making a mistake. All we had to do was set fields that allowed them to bowl maidens and wait for batsmen to fall into the trap.

  In some ways, I was surprised that this strategy worked as well and as consistently as it did, on all sorts of different wickets. Perhaps modern-day batsmen weren’t as patient as their ancestors, but time and time again batsmen tried to hit their way out of being strangled, only to fail in their quest. It was often the best players, such as Ponting and Tendulkar, who fell for the trap. Guys who didn’t like to be dominated tended to be the most susceptible.

  At times, we still had to turn to plan B, which usually involved having to be more active in our search for a wicket, especially against players who were willing to play the waiting game against us. However, on most occasions I preferred to be certain that our plan A wasn’t working before looking for other ways of taking wickets.

  There will be people out there who say that the method was too staid and predictable, lacking in flair and charisma. I believe, though, that we were merely sticking to what we did best. We had found what the England cricket team’s unique strength was, and our results over a three-year period spoke far more loudly than any of the detractors.

  Certainly, by the time we reached the third Test against India in August, the method had taken us to the verge of becoming the world’s best cricket team.

  In this Test series, the Indian cricket team, proud holders of the ICC mace that signifies the world’s best Test team, have been undone by a combination of cricketing strengths. The England batsmen have been in form and hungry to make what Graham Gooch, our batting coach, refers to as ‘daddy hundreds’ – large scores that take the game away from the opposition. Our bowling attack, meanwhile, has been simply too hot to handle. A few of the Indian batsmen, including Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina, have looked distinctly uncomfortable against the short ball, while the rest have generally struggled with the swing and seam. Rahul Dravid apart, who once again has proved his excellent all-round qualities, their big-name players have not delivered.

  As the tension around the country in the wake of the riots has slowly dissipated, so the pressure on the Indian team has gradually increased. A substandard batting performance on a decent wicket on the first day of the third Test has left India with a mountain to climb with the ball. Without the injured Zaheer Khan, their bowling attack has looked threadbare and all our batsmen have gradually worn them down.

  Alastair Cook, in particular, has shown remarkable mental strength in batting for over nine hours for a career-best 294. He will undoubtedly be kicking himself for not going on to get 300, showing that even at your moment of greatest triumph, there are still regrets to be had, but he has batted us into a position of utter dominance. The result of the game is a formality.

  Trailing by 486 runs after the first innings, India quickly subsided to 130–7 before a spirited resistance by Dhoni, in particular, has restored a little respectability. Although he has been stuck with an underperforming side in English conditions, I have admired his calm manner and strong leadership. Captaining India, with all the hype and mania that surrounds the side, must be incredibly difficult, but he has handled it all exceptionally well. Nonetheless, they now find themselves on the verge of relinquishing the crown of the world’s number-one side.

  Tim Bresnan bustles in to the crease, bowling at Sreesanth, the Indian number-eleven batsman. The ball is pitched short of a length, aimed at Sreesanth’s ribcage, conforming exactly to our pre-game plan to rough up the tail-enders. Sreesanth is unable to control the steepling bounce and can only fend off the ball, sending it looping towards Kevin Pietersen in the gully.

  We all freeze for a moment in anticipation of Pietersen making the catch. There is no way that he can drop it and he duly completes the task. There is pandemonium as we all come together in a huddle, jumping up and down. We have won the game, the series is ours and, far more importantly, we are now officially the best Test team in the world.

  A goal that started as a pipe dream two and a half years earlier has now been achieved, at least a year and a half earlier than we expected.

  That evening, with a few beers down my neck and filled with the unique sensations that accompany a job well done, I couldn’t help but think about the journey that we had all been on over the last few years. What started with the ignominy of being bowled out for 51 in Jamaica had ended with us sitting on the top of the pile, as the world’s best team.

  I spent a little time thinking about the reasons for the turnaround in fortunes. I thought back to the various changes that Andy Flower and I had made to the set-up. None had been exactly revolutionary, and it would be hard to argue that any one thing that we did could explain why we had so much success so quickly.

  You could perhaps argue that the sum of the parts added up to something radically different from the past. If you put together the improvements in our statistical analysis, a changed emphasis in practice and a far more wide-ranging preparation process, then what you had was a method that bore no resemblance to the one that Andy and I inherited.

  I still don’t believe, though, that the answer to our rapid rise lay there. In truth, there was a combination of reasons for our success, ranging from Hugh Morris at the ECB, right through to Mark Saxby, our masseur, and almost everything and everyone in between. There is no way that any one person could take the credit for what happened.

  If I were forced to focus on one area, however, it would have to be on the relationships between everyone in the set-up. I don’t think that anyone could dispute that the culture in the dressing room had changed significantly, even from when we were beating the Australians in 2005. Of course, some of it was by design, but much of it was the result of people coming together and working towards a common goal.

  There was a genuine feeling of togetherness within the group, which kept us going during the tough moments and allowed us to scale new heights when things were going in our favour. Andy Flower and the rest of the management team set a fantastic example in that respect, but the players, who could easily have found themselves being sidetracked by self-interest and personal agendas, did a tremendous job in buying into the idea that the team had to come first.

  Corporate consultants would probably look at our group and conclude that there were some strong ‘cultural architects’, or a ‘critical mass’ of individuals who policed the side. I prefer to say that there were a bunch of good blokes, who all desperately wanted to be part of something special. Many people go through life not knowing what it is like to be part of a great team. I don’t think it happens all that often. I truly believe that we were some of the fortunate ones lucky enough to experience it.

  Of course, getting to the top and staying there are two completely different things. I had no idea at that stage quite how difficult the next step of the journey would be, as our status as the world’s number-one team, our motivation, our goals and also our togetherness would be tested to the limit over the next twelve months.

  India in England 201
1 – The Pataudi Trophy

  1st Test. Lord’s, London. 21–25 July 2011

  England 474–8 dec (K.P. Pietersen 202*, M.J. Prior 71*, I.J.L. Trott 70, A.J. Strauss 22; P. Kumar 5–106) and 269–6 dec (M.J. Prior 103*, S.C.J. Broad 74*, A.J. Strauss 32; I. Sharma 4–59)

  India 286 (R. Dravid 103; S.C.J. Broad 4–37) and 261 (S.K. Raina 78, V.V.S. Laxman 56; J.M. Anderson 5–65)

  England won by 196 runs.

  2nd Test. Trent Bridge, Nottingham. 29 July – 1 August 2011

  England 221 (S.C.J. Broad 64, A.J. Strauss 32) and 544 (I.R. Bell 159, T.T. Bresnan 90, M.J. Prior 73, E.J.G. Morgan 70, K.P. Pietersen 63, A.J. Strauss 16; P. Kumar 4–124)

  India 288 (R. Dravid 117, Yuvraj Singh 62, V.V.S. Laxman 54; S.C.J. Broad 6–46) and 158 (S.R. Tendulkar 56; T.T. Bresnan 5–48)

  England won by 319 runs.

  3rd Test. Edgbaston, Birmingham. 10–13 August 2011

  India 224 (M.S. Dhoni 77; S.C.J. Broad 4–53, T.T. Bresnan 4–62) and 244 (M.S. Dhoni 74*; J.M. Anderson 4–85)

  England 710–7 dec (A.N. Cook 294, E.J.G. Morgan 104, A.J. Strauss 87, K.P. Pietersen 63, T.T. Bresnan 53*)

  England won by an innings and 242 runs.

  4th Test. The Oval, London. 18–22 August 2011

  England 591–6 dec (I.R. Bell 235, K.P. Pietersen 175, A.J. Strauss 40)

  India 300 (R. Dravid 146) and 283 (f/o) (S.R. Tendulkar 91, A. Mishra 84; G.P. Swann 6–106.)

  England won by an innings and 8 runs.

  England won the series 4–0.

  18

  TIME TO GO

  I make my way from the outfield at Lord’s, head bowed and dejected. I continue up the stairs in front of the pavilion and turn left as I enter the Long Room. I avert my gaze from the inquisitive members as I head for the sanctuary of the dressing room. This is the last time I will make this walk as an England cricketer, although I am far too frustrated, tired and generally hacked off with life for it to be a rousing emotional affair. In any case, I am just about the only one who knows it. No one else in the ground, apart from my wife and Flower, has any idea what is about to happen over the next few days.

  I pick my way past the piles of kit littering the dressing-room floor. I find my space in the far corner of the room, near the television set, and sit down. I carefully pack my helmet in my kit bag and then bury my head in my hands. For ten minutes, I just sit there, unable to move. A couple of well-meaning team-mates walk past and give me a consolatory pat on the leg, but I can’t even muster the energy to look up. I am caught in a web of conflicting emotions.

  I feel incredibly tired, as though I have simply run out of energy – I have nothing more to give. I am also wallowing in a rising tide of sadness. I simply can’t believe that I have played my last game of cricket. This is not the way I wanted it to end. Although my contribution to the match is now over, I still feel unbelievably frustrated at what has happened over the last seven days. What is meant to be one of the great occasions in any cricketer’s career, a hundredth Test match, has been marred by events beyond my control. This is no celebration.

  It looks almost certain that we will lose the Test match to South Africa, along with both the series and our number-one ranking. My contribution to the game has been insignificant, falling to Morne Morkel yet again in the first innings for 20 and then inexplicably leaving a straight ball from Philander in the second for one. The dismissal showed all the hallmarks of scrambled thinking.

  Over the last ten days my mind has been on anything but batting. The England cricket team is in crisis again, featuring once more on the front pages of the newspapers, and Andy Flower and I have found ourselves right in the middle of a destabilising and potentially damaging PR game between Kevin Pietersen, the England cricket team and the ECB.

  How did it come to this? Twelve months before, we had been crowned the world’s number-one cricket team. We were being fêted wherever we went. Everyone was patting us on the back, telling us what a pleasure it was to see an England sporting team reach the summit. We were crowned ‘Team of the Year’ at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards, and both Alastair Cook and I were nominated for the much-coveted main prize. After a hectic eighteen months, we had close to three months off to wallow in the warm feeling of success. Our next assignment, against Pakistan in Dubai, was not going to take place until after New Year.

  Perhaps I was too negative, but I couldn’t help worrying when everyone, from the media to the person on the street, kept telling us how great we were. It brought back uncomfortable memories of the hubris that affected the team after the 2005 Ashes, and we all know what happened in the twelve months that followed. This time, though, I thought we were in a better position to cope. We were supremely confident, with a very settled side, and there were some excellent people in and around the team, determined to keep everyone’s feet on the ground. We knew that our next two series in Dubai and Sri Lanka would test us, as they demanded skill against the spinning ball, but it was exactly the sort of challenge we needed.

  The one area we were struggling with was in goal-setting. Up to that point, it was easy for us to understand and commit to a goal. We wanted to be the best team in the world and we could track our progress towards that goal along the way. Now, however, things had become a little less clear. In truth, we became torn between trying to set a challenging new goal for ourselves, taking things to a new level, and consolidating our position, not looking too far ahead.

  If, for instance, we decided we wanted to create a legacy for ourselves by dominating Test cricket, it would take a very long time and it would be all but impossible to judge exactly when we had achieved that goal. If, on the other hand, we set ourselves the more modest challenge of still being at the top of the rankings in twelve months’ time, then that smacked of just trying to hang on, rather than pushing forward.

  Many sports teams and managers in this country have struggled to achieve sustained success. You only have to look at the England rugby union team after the World Cup victory in 2003, or Manchester City after winning the Premiership in 2011–12. Repeating great feats is fiendishly difficult, especially when many members of the team justifiably feel a little satisfied with what they have achieved. What is the point in playing sport if you aren’t entitled to enjoy your best moments?

  Also, the attitude of other teams changes overnight. Suddenly, you are the hunted, rather than the hunter. Everyone is straining to knock you off your block and will do everything in their power to make sure they are as prepared as you are. If you don’t raise things to a new level very quickly, you will find yourselves overtaken before you know it.

  It didn’t take us long after arriving in Dubai in January 2012 to realise that everything had changed. A couple of sloppy performances in the warm-up games, when players could be forgiven for being a little ring-rusty, were the prelude to a very difficult first Test match against Pakistan. Batting first, on what looked like a good wicket, we were 52–5 at lunch thanks to a combination of nervy batting and excellent spin bowling by Saeed Ajmal. In that first session, we not only batted ourselves out of the game, but we also allowed a particularly worrying mental frailty against spin to develop. By the end of the day, Ajmal had picked up seven wickets on a track that was hardly turning at all, and from that moment on, most of the battles in the series were between our ears, rather than with the Pakistani bowlers.

  Our bowlers fought particularly hard to keep us in the first Test, to no avail, and they actually bettered their performance in the second Test match in Abu Dhabi, leaving us with the fairly routine task of chasing down 145 to level the series. To say that we failed in that regard would be an understatement. We were bowled out for 72, as a mixture of high-quality spin bowling, nerves and poor technique fatally undermined our batsmen.

  After three weeks in Dubai, all the back-patting and celebrations at the end of the previous summer seemed like years ago. We were still the number-one team in the world on paper, but we had already lost the series against Pak
istan and we all had a huge amount of work to do on how we dealt with spin bowling.

  It is fair to say that the DRS had forced players to change their techniques against spin completely. Before the introduction of the technology, batsmen had rarely been given out lbw off the front foot. It was one of those silly conventions of the game, by which the umpires felt bound to give the benefit of any doubt to the batsman. Ball-tracking, however, showed that many balls bowled by spin bowlers were going to hit the stumps and so umpires started raising their fingers more often. Graeme Swann, with his excellent bowling to left-handers in particular, was a grateful beneficiary of this change in interpretation.

  Batsmen were faced with a choice. They could either keep playing the way they were accustomed, or find another method that kept their front pad out of the way. It was pretty clear that what we had been doing wasn’t working and so hours were spent in the nets in Dubai working on different ways of playing spin. However, the result was that for this series we sometimes found ourselves caught between old and new methods in the middle. Even though the time spent in the nets would help us in the future, it all but ensured a defeat in the final Test, despite our bowlers once again doing the hard work by dismissing Pakistan for 99 in the first innings. A 3–0 series defeat was both unexpected and shocking.

  Any team can have a poor series. I don’t think it is right to judge a team on only three matches. I was very concerned, though, about the patent lack of confidence in the batting line-up. Players who had been seemingly invincible the previous summer suddenly were suddenly looking nervous and ungainly on the unfamiliar wickets in Dubai. Even Kevin Pietersen, who so often could be relied upon to take the game to the opposition, was struggling with some demons against left-arm spin. It is not uncommon for one or two of a team’s batsmen to be going through a barren patch at any one time, but for the whole batting line-up to be struggling with spin did not augur well for the future, especially as our next assignment was in the dust bowls of Sri Lanka.