Strauss' jarring note

I get a feeling that Andrew Strauss is totally pissed off with Kevin Pietersen beating him to the captaincy. Either that, or he's just being brutally honest. Sample some of his quotes when he spoke to AFP and The Guardian.

• I would have liked to have done the Test job and, to that degree, I am disappointed I have not been given the opportunity.
  
• It is a brave decision because KP hasn't done much captaincy before.
  
• I think he does play for the team. I think that selfish aspect is overplayed. He would probably admit in his youth he was a bit like that but I don't think he is like that so much now.
  
• Captains have to be respected and that is something you cannot buy.
  
• There are so many different aspects you have to worry about. It's not just about preparing yourself and the team for the match but also dealing with the selectors and the media. You find there is not much time to concentrate on cricket and it can become dispiriting at times, as Michael found. It's a brilliant job but a really difficult one and, apart from in one one-day match, Kevin has never experienced that. This is a potentially tough time for the team.
  
• We are going from having the best captain England has ever had to someone who has never done it before. It is hard to say if Kevin will ultimately be successful.

Personally, I think England are rather hung up on this whole business of unifying the captaincy. There's no reason why sides can't have separate captains for tests and one-dayers. In fact, the only time England actually won a tournament with 4 or more sides playing was the Akai-Singer Champions Trophy under Adam Hollioake in 1997/98.

My vote was for Strauss to be made test captain and Pietersen to do the job in one-dayers. That way, he could gradually get a hang of things and if Strauss wasn't doing a good job, he could be handed over the test captaincy as well.

Labels: captaincy, england, pietersen, strauss

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:33 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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A round Telegraph table

Scyld Berry moderates a wonderful discussion at a virtual round-table between Atherton, Strauss, Sangakkara and Ian Chappell. As you'd expect from these folks, there's a lot of sense. Ian Chappell though had me in splits quite a few times.

Berry: Was it too long? The ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed didn't think so until last week.

Chappell: Malcolm has been living in Dubai for too long. As I've said before, they've got a hotel under the sea there and a ski resort in the desert. It's too far away from reality.

Berry: Plenty of room in the dressing-room for ice-baths?

Chappell: Is an ice-bath where you keep the beers for after the game?

Berry: Let us turn, Kumar, to your stumping of Brian Lara in Guyana.

Sangakkara: Sometimes I break the stumps far too often and this time I was lucky. I have to stand up a lot now. Wickets are getting better and medium-pace or fast-medium bowlers are beginning to suffer [from batsmen going down the pitch] and you have to stand up.

Chappell: Are wickets getting better or slower....

Berry: Andrew, what was your favourite moment?

Chappell: Getting picked?

Labels: 2007 world cup, strauss, world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:29 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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Meaningless stat of the day

When Andrew Strauss, Warne's 700th "test" wicket, was asked how he felt to be #700, he said:

I think there are probably 699 other guys who felt pretty bad after getting out to Shane Warne and I'm no different today.

When I read that quote, I knew he was obviously wrong. There couldn't have been 699 other players who got out to Warne in test cricket, given Warne'd dismissed several players multiple times.

So here's the list of those who've taken 400 test wickets and dismissed at least 200 batsmen.

Bowler	Count
Murali	270
Kumble	243
Warne	236
McGrath	216
Wasim Akram	205

It does seem highly unlikely to me that Warne can get ahead of Kumble, especially since Warne seems to have dismissed every member of the current England team out at least once! England can help Warne get to #2 by getting the Academy side to play at Sydney rather than the main team. They can't do worse, I suppose!

Labels: ashes, ashes 2006, australia, england, kumble, mcgrath, murali, pollock, statistic, strauss, warne, wasim akram

Thus spake Jagadish @ 7:27 pm | Sledge/Read 6 sledge(s)
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A chat with Andrew Strauss

Andrew Strauss, two-time entrant in Glenn McGrath's Ashes target list, until recently in the captaincy role of being a stand-in for the stand-in for the stand-in before he was replaced as England captain, is interviewed by Sue Mott in the Daily Telegraph.

I especially liked this bit

"You know," he wheedled in mitigation, "you get into hotel mode when you're on tour. We spend an inordinate amount of time in hotels, maybe 300 out of 365 days. When you're peckish, you order room service. You don't have to do those chores that annoy you. So you get home, you put your feet up on the sofa, you want some food and you say, 'Ruth, can you get me a sandwich?' And she said, 'No, I can't'. I got put back in my place pretty quickly.

"It's a shock for an hour or so, and then you remember the good thing is you're only a month away from room service again."

Labels: strauss

Thus spake Jagadish @ 2:49 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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Glenn McGrath: I'd have named Courtney Walsh as my target

In a shocking revelation, Glenn McGrath revealed that had he picked up the habit of naming a target a decade ago, he'd have named Courtney Walsh (batting average 7.5) as a target during series against the West Indies if Walsh was the skipper.

The context was his declaration that Andrew Strauss, England's stand-in to the stand-in to the stand-in skipper and Alastair Cook were his targets for the forthcoming Ashes.

In an exclusive interview with this site, McGrath justified himself by saying

You always name the captain.

The interesting aspect is that unlike Wisden's list, you can be named in McGrath's list twice, as Strauss, who was in last year's list has found out.

Clearly, he's doing a lot of risk diversification. Previously he used to only name the captain or the team's best batsman - Atherton, Ganguly & Lara, to name a few.

Labels: exclusive, strauss

Thus spake Jagadish @ 10:31 am | Sledge/Read 3 sledge(s)
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