Strauss

Where does he rank amongst all time England opening batsmen? Trescothick? Vaughan? Atherton? Does he belong in that company?

I reckon he's on a par with Vaughan.

Henry comes through with the typical knee-jerk . . .

Saying Strauss is as good as Vaughan is a knee jerk?

If anything Strauss is slightly better.

Vaughan would've batted until stumps.

Strauss is good. But I wouldn't start putting him up with other England greats. 169 on a road is Good, but not Great.

Last week was a pretty important test for him, new captain of England, time to usher in a new era, placate potential dressingroom conflict. It was his moment to lead from the front with the bat.

Remind me how he went!

And while we're at it, didn't he make some pretty telling contributions during the last home series against SA? I know he made a few runs in the dead rubber.

Straussey = Solid, dependable, stoic, non complacent, no-nonsense person and a decent batsman.

Despite the kick in the guts in Nov '06, I've always believed he'd make a better captain because he's his own man who has no hidden agenda as previous incumbents did. Doesn't ramp on about playing for the Three Lions etc etc ... just gets on with it.

Stamping his authority by making the "surprise" changes for this Test match proves the point (he is the only one selecting the team - Flower only advises.)

The test at Sabina came at a time when he was still dousing egos in the dressing room post the KP-Moores fallout and amidst all the IPL auction crap. To return from that humiliation and post a score of 169 a week later shows the real Strauss character.
He'll do nicely.

He's not as beautiful to look at as Vaughan was in full flow.

Yesterday's innings was the old Strauss. Ie the Strauss that plays more than 2 different shots in his innings. It was good to see.

I guess he's not that far off Vaughan as a batsman but as a captain only time will tell. He seems quite a steady, cautious kind of guy so he suits being England captain very well.

Henry wrote:Yesterday's innings was the old Strauss. Ie the Strauss that plays more than 2 different shots in his innings. It was good to see.

That's because he's worked on his game - comes onto the front foot a lot more and looks to drive more than cut off the back. His five straight drives for fours and the lofted six back over Benn's head were examples.

Re Captaincy - agreed, it's too early to tell. But he will be better than Vaughan rest assured.
Unlike MPV, Strauss has inherited a dysfunctional team stacked with ego, aggro, love-ins and a 'stat average of 40' complacency; whereas MPV's greatest period, (having inherited a tough unit from Naz in the first place) was Ashes'05 when he had 11 players (bar the dumbBell) firing on all cylinders. He also had Feltch (who was top of his game at that time), to help him out. After Feltch's departure, he went on to f**k it all up with the 'pet/mate' metality ... (bar the Snoozers tour) but that's another story.

Strauss is solid - and so far, believable.

What's that now? 15 test centuries

he's no mug, but looks horrible when in poor form

He's probably got an average in excess of that of KP over the same period since his return to the side as well...

Since the 1st Test against the Kiwis in March last year when Strauss was recalled.

Strauss : 1163 runs @ 50.57
KP : 1121 runs @ 50.95

KP needs a half century in this innings to keep his nose in front during that period both in terms of aggregate and average.

Got to admit, thought the old Strauss was done for at test level