Aggers’ Ashes. Jonathan Agnew

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ parts over the last few months and how the forecast for the Test is unsettled. It would be too awful if after the huge build up and with so many cricket fans here and back home in a state of massively heightened anticipation the game was a washout. I haven’t even considered it as a possibility.

      I catch up with Adam Mountford, our Test Match Special producer, who arrived in Australia yesterday and is clearly jet lagged, along with Caroline Short, who will be producing Mark Pougatch’s output on Radio 5 live. Over dinner I give them both a report on the last couple of weeks and include a quick demo of the Sprinkler. Unfortunately this is spotted by some of the tour photographers who are sitting at a nearby table. I fear it is something that could well come back to haunt me.

      DAY 20: 22 November 2010

      It is our first chance to catch up with the Australian side: they are practising at the Allan Border field, a small cricket ground in the Brisbane suburb of Albion that is home to the Australian Cricket Academy. We are then treated to a ‘media opportunity’. In reality this means we journalists all stand in a line cordoned off by a rope from the players. Every player walks down the row of queuing journalists, who are given a brief interview of a maximum of two minutes each. I have come hopelessly unprepared, and while waiting 45 minutes for the event to get started, am scorched by the blistering Australian sun, absolutely burned to a crisp. All for two minutes with Ricky Ponting. He is his usual business-like self and, as always, answers my questions honestly and directly. He has a lot on his mind, not least the fitness of Michael Clarke, whose recurrent back problem has struck again. Clarke was not able to practise today and will have to do so tomorrow to have any chance of playing on Thursday. Usman Khawaja is called up as a possible replacement. I ask Ponting if there’s a confidence problem within Australian cricket and, naturally enough, he denies it.

      Things continue to hot up on the sledging front. Former England coach Duncan Fletcher has riled the Aussies by claiming their Test team has not been in such a muddled state for thirty years. He adds that Australian cricket is in a dark place. Australia’s coach Tim Nielsen bites back: “His opinions on most things in Test cricket are irrelevant. Have a look at his record here. His record speaks for itself. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but that’s no great surprise. He isn’t fit to lace Ricky Ponting’s bootstraps.”

      Meanwhile, Shane Warne, a friend of Pietersen’s, claims that England’s treatment of Pietersen is responsible for his loss of form. Warne suggests that Pietersen has been made to feel like an ‘outcast’. I must admit that is not my impression from what I have seen on the tour, and Andy Flower is forced to reject it during his press conference today.

      With a face like a ripe tomato I appear on the Channel 9 evening news and then head off to a delightful party hosted by the Queensland Tourist Board. Former great Australian fast bowler Jeff Thomson is there, long silver hair flowing, and we all have the chance to be photographed either stroking a gorgeous Koala called Crumpet, or a rather vicious looking Olive Python, wrapped menacingly around the torso of its young female handler. I go for Crumpet. In fact, I think we all do.

      THE SECRET OF STRAUSS AS SKIPPER

      Tom Fordyce | 22 November 2010

      When Andrew Strauss was appointed England captain in the messy aftermath of the Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores saga, it was almost by default. He was not only a safe pair of hands, he was the only pair. Less than two years later, Strauss leads his country into an Ashes series not only in possession of the coveted urn but more heavily fancied to beat Australia on their home patch than any England skipper in almost a quarter of a century.

      If it is a headline-grabber of a transformation, the man himself is almost the polar opposite. From the first moment he arrived at Middlesex, fresh from Durham University and Radley College, Strauss has been personified by the virtues of hard work, steady self-improvement and composure under fire. “Back in the late 1990s, I played with Andrew in the first team at Middlesex and then spent long hours with him as coach,” remembers Mike Gatting, the last England captain to secure the Ashes on enemy territory. “You could see the sort of character he was even as a teenager. When he first came into the team, we were more comprehensive schoolboys rather than public school, so we used to chip away at him about that. But he was very good at dealing with it.”

      While Mike Atherton famously had the initials ‘FEC – ‘Future England Captain’ – scrawled on his locker, Strauss initially struggled to convince at county level. In his first game in Middlesex colours, a Sunday League match in July 1997, he made only three, bowled by Matthew Fleming. He hit 83 on his first-class debut a year later but his maiden county century did not come for a further two years. “It’s always difficult coming in from school cricket as a young up-and-coming hopeful,” says Gatting. “It takes a while to settle into the heavier stuff. Andrew worked very hard on technique and playing at that different level. He was prepared to work very hard at it and do what was needed. Importantly, he had a very good grounding at Radley. Their coach, Andy Wagner, did a great job and they gave him a sound understanding of the game. He was always a natural sportsman, too. He was a very good rugby player and had a low golf handicap. From my point of view as coach, it was a pleasure working with someone who had such a good work ethic and who clearly had such a love of cricket.”

      The young Strauss took particular note of two other men in the dressing-room, skipper Mark Ramprakash and Australian opener Justin Langer. Gatting again: “Justin was the ideal role model, not only as a fellow left-hander who Andrew could work with but as a great example in how to prepare. Langer took his cricket seriously and had a lot of passion for it. There was always that in Andrew. He was always very competitive, never liked coming second. Every time he played, every time he went in, you could see he was striving to become better.”

      In his early days as full-time England skipper – on the unsuccessful tour of the West Indies, when he appeared loath to make attacking declarations -Strauss was sometimes criticised for being too cautious and unimaginative. At that stage, the aim was to steady the ship, rather than risk steering it back on to the rocks. While he has grown a little more adventurous with time, he remains a study in careful composure. He is both stoical in defeat and calm in victory. Just as there was no panic after the crushing defeat by Australia at Headingley last summer, so there were no wild celebrations after the series-clinching win at The Oval.

      “The one key thing about Andrew is that he’s very level-headed,” explains Gatting. “He always had it very firmly in his mind what he wanted to do, how he was going to do it and how he was going to be as a person. That self-confidence feeds into his displays at the crease. While history has lain heavy on the shoulders of many unsuccessful Ashes skippers, Strauss appears capable of carrying its burden. “It’s an integral part of his success,” says Gatting. “He knows who he is. He will set his standards and he’s not one to then move from that.”

      During the 2009 Ashes, Strauss scored 474 runs at an average of 52.66, more than any other player in the series. He also hit 161 as England won their first Ashes Test at Lord’s in 75 years. His overall average with the bat as skipper is 47.34, compared to 41.04 as a humble foot soldier. This compares favourably with the record of the last England captain to win the Ashes, Michael Vaughan, who averaged a stellar 50.98 as a mere batsman but only 36.02 while in charge of the side.

      “We used to have chats about it, about making sure he does enough for himself, being able to relaxand focus on his own game as well as the captaincy,” says Gatting. “He can be a very selfless player, always thinking about the team, but sometimes you have to focus on yourself. You understand your own game as you get older, and Andrew knows his well enough to know what he has to do. A lot of it is about time management. Work out what you have to do as captain and get there early. Get your own work done and dusted so you can then watch your team. If you need a little more practice, then do it at the end. You have to be calculating.”

      Strauss has not always found СКАЧАТЬ