Andrew Strauss: ‘We’d be mad to be satisfied by Ashes win’
November 27, 2009 by Duncan Steer
Filed under Features
Andrew Strauss puts the Ashes win in perspective in his interview in the special 2009 Review issue of SPIN, which is in shops from Friday November 27.
SPIN: You’re very feet-on-the-ground about the Ashes win, aren’t you? There’s no triumphalism – you feel it was the start of something rather than the end-goal…
Andrew Strauss: It has to be. Look at our world ranking and look where Australia are. Anyone who thinks that we’ve achieved our life goal would be… mad. Quite frankly.
But it is the life goal of every English cricketer to win the Ashes…
Well, it is, but…
So it would be a reasonable reaction to think ‘job done’…
Exactly. It’s so important to our country: the history, the tradition, the rivalry. But in pure cricketing terms at the moment, there are bigger challenges for us. We may not have the same euphoria if we win in South Africa, but it’s a bigger challenge. I personally think it’s sad that the England team has never been the No 1 team in the world for any extended period of time, certainly in one- day cricket. And we’re going to be taking as many steps as we can to make sure we get somewhere near that.
To England fans, the 6-1 NatWest Series defeat to Australia after the Ashes may have looked similar to the 5-0 thrashing your side took against Sri Lanka in 2006. Has there been any progress at all? Did the two series feel any different to you?
Well, some of the traits were similar. At that time [2006] we had a pretty good Test side but we were experimenting with one-day players: Tim Bresnan and a couple of other players came in for that Sri Lanka series probably when they weren’t quite ready. This time, we are maybe a bit more settled as a side. But when you’re losing like that it makes you reassess what you’re doing as a side. Myself and Andy Flower have a number of areas that we feel we have to improve upon if we want to compete with some of these teams away from home as well as at home in the future. And the Australian defeat was really a catalyst for us to start putting some of those plans into action…
Writing in SPIN, Eoin Morgan said that defeat gave England a new carefree, nothing-to-lose approach to their batting. He used the phrase ‘hell-for-leather’…
Well, there’s a number of things we’re looking to do, some of which we haven’t spoken to the players about yet, actually. But that attacking intent is a good one, away from home in particular. To live with the likes of India and some of these teams you have to play that way. But at the same time, you can’t use that as a crutch: ‘I got out but at least I played my shots’. We need to be more consistent as a batting unit, so we need to improve our skills. If we want to be more attacking and more consistent, our skills need to improve a lot.
Andrew Strauss’ book, Testing Times – In Pursuit of the Ashes’ is published by Hodder and is in shops now. This is an extract from an interview in the Christmas issue of SPIN, also featuring Stuart Broad, Michael Vaughan, Garry Sobers, Viv Richards and the debut of Andy Caddick as our hard-hitting star columnist – as well as our now-traditional Top 50 countdown of the year.
Pressure on India and Dilshan’s genius
June 14, 2009 by Eoin Morgan
Filed under Eoin Morgan blog, Featured Content
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The fact that we came back so strongly against Pakistan last week after the defeat to Holland gives us a good precedent in preparing to play India today at Lord’s. Seeing India lose to West Indies reminded us that they are beatable and that, as champions, there’s an enormous pressure on them to stay in this fantastic tournament. More than there is on England, I think. The expectations on India are very high. We certainly believe that if we go out with the same fearless approach we showed against Pakistan, we’ll beat India.
After losing to South Africa in the first Super 8s game on Thursday, we had Friday off. I’ve just moved into my new flat so I spent the day moving wardrobes and painting walls. I mean, I was taking it easy: I’m not going to get injured shifting furniture in the middle of a World Cup and end up as a quiz question.
The team are all together in a hotel but I live close to Lord’s now and since we spend so much time on the road anyway, it was nice to spend a day at home. It was relaxing to get out of cricket mode. And in a big tournament, that can be important.
Saturday, we trained. We had a good game of football to start with, then some individual preparation. Once you’re in the tournament it’s about mental preparation. The football brings a competitive edge out of people and helps us to relax and not get uptight. Who’s the best footballer in the England side? I’d say… Jimmy Anderson. He’s in the mould of, well, a Frank Lampard.
After football, we worked on our individual skills; I just work on my basics throughout the competition, keep me ticking over.
The tournament has been awesome. I love Twenty20 anyway - but turning up mid-afternoon and playing Twenty20 in front of a packed house every time, with the support we’re getting. It’s phenomenal. I’ve never experienced anything like it.
Looking at the other teams, Tillekeratne Dilshan is an absolute phenomenon. I was watching him a lot during the IPL. The way he plays, with so many unusual shots might make people bracket him with my style; I’m just fascinated to see a right-hander do it. I’m not sure he actually has all that many shots that I don’t have: I’ve used the flip that puts the ball straight back over the wicket-keeper’s head, for example. So I think it’s not so much how he plays his innovative shots, technically, that interests me, as the times that he plays them and the way he has uses them to string such a good run of innings together at this level.
He’s obviously a very good player at the top of the order, full-stop, but then given time, he can innovate too. I suppose people might associate those sweeps and flicks and flip shots with batting against the spinners in the middle overs but in some ways it’s easier to play them when there’s pace on the ball in the early overs.
Did we feel as if South Africa were playing a different game to us on Thursday? Not really. They’re not invincible. Beforehand we had talked about the last time we had played them, last summer when we beat them 4-0: as a team, you can take confidence from those sort of series. Obviously they’re a strong side but on a different day I think we could have beaten them.
After we lost Kevin and we were 25/3, Owais and Paul got a bit of a partnership going but after that we struggled. It can happen. Some people have said that our shot selection might have been better but I think that’s unfair. The wicket was pretty slow and losing wickets regularly meant that new batsmen had to work out a way of moving the game on as soon as they came in. And the South Africans have two very good one-day spinners, in Botha and van der Merwe. And you don’t want to come in and start smashing it about straight away - but as it happened, every release-shot we tried didn’t come off. That can happen in Twenty20 cricket.
Wayne Parnell is turning out to be one of the bowlers of the tournament. I played against him for Middlesex against Kent early in the season. He doesn’t swing it or reverse it like Umar Gul. He just hits the deck hard: in some ways, nothing out of the ordinary, but he bowls those angles, left-arm over the wicket, which makes the difference.
We had a debrief after the game. The captain and the coach both spoke and then other players chipped in. Having not played, it’s difficult to give an opinion or make a valid point so I tend to keep quiet.
On Sunday, I’ll get to Lord’s about halfway through the second innings of the first game. Ireland are playing Sri Lanka so maybe a little bit earlier. I’ve been in touch with a couple of the Irish guys during the tournament. The captain William Porterfield, is my best mate and we went for dinner the night before the South Africa game. We’ve known each other since we were nine or ten - I played for Ireland under-13s when I was 10 and he was the captain.
William’s obviously with Gloucestershire, but most of the Irish team are still amateurs - they work all week and only play cricket on a Saturday, so that does give them a real passion about their cricket. To find themselves in the middle of this amazing tournament instead of working at their day jobs gives them a real drive: any ‘professional’ team that shows any weakness can come unstuck against that. I saw it when we lost to Holland - the sheer passion that the Associate countries can bring to a tournament like this. That’s how the upsets happen.
We’ve had a bad game, then a good game, then a bad game… so we’re due a good game again today against India. Everyone’s optimistic about the talent we have in the squad and our chances of getting things going again.
Previous entries
Losing to Netherlands, beating Pakistan
How and why I play those Twenty20 shots
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Eoin Morgan World Twenty20 blog: Netherlands & Pakistan
June 10, 2009 by Eoin Morgan
Filed under Eoin Morgan blog, Features
As it turned out, I think losing to Holland did England a lot of favours. The extra pressure put on us in the 48 hours before the game with Pakistan allowed us to go out and throw caution to the wind and play fearlessly. It was almost ideal. T20 cricket should be played instinctively; you should express yourself and that’s how we were against Pakistan. The crowd at the Oval was unbelievable. It was the best atmosphere I’ve been a part of. Ridiculous. The support was magnificent. The fact that we’ve bounced back so well and so quickly will give us a lot of confidence going into the Super8s.
Losing to Holland was a massive shock. I’ve been playing against them for years and I’d never seen them play like that before. It certainly came as a surprise to me. Because I’d had so much experience against the Dutch, I had been giving the guys the low-down on the Dutch batters and bowlers in the build-up to the game. Or what I thought was the low-down! But nothing prepared us for what they threw at us. They played so well. We’d been in high spirits, we felt we’d hit the ground running with the ODIs and our T20 warm-up games. So it was a massive shock for us.
I certainly didn’t have any idea that Tom de Grooth could play like that. I’ve played with and against Tom for years. We spent three months together at an ICC High Performance camp in South Africa and I’d certainly never seen him strike the ball like that. Every time we looked to peg them back, they found a boundary - either by smashing it or by getting an inside edge. It just seemed to be their day.
It’s true that there’s probably less video footage of the Associate nations, so in some ways the bigger teams are less well equipped to prepare for games against them. But, really, it’s not down to the video footage or laptop work: it’s more down to whether you’ve faced certain players before. So Associate nations do have a small advantage in that way.
It’s difficult to pin point where we went wrong. Obviously we could have done better in the field; we missed those run outs. But I don’t think we played that badly. We just needed another 10 or 15 runs.
At the time - even though we hadn’t got any partnerships going after Luke and Ravi had set things up – we were pretty happy with the total we’d set. It wasn’t a case of underestimating Holland and saying, ‘Oh, 160 is enough’, it was more backing our bowlers. The only real mistakes we made were the run out chances: we must have had the chance to hit the stumps five or six times and if we’d taken those the result might have been different.
Our ground fielding and catching was pretty good considering the conditions: it was raining for the best part of the last eight or nine overs and the ball was pretty slippy.
It was quiet in the dressing room afterwards. Everyone devastated. Shell shocked, more than anything. Really down. We spoke about it and picking ourselves up. The belief was that we could beat Pakistan.
Between games, we didn’t really talk about the prospect of going out of the tournament. We were focused on what we had to do positively: we had to beat Pakistan, we had to bring our ‘A’ game and play fearless cricket. If you’re tentative, you’re lost. It’s all about momentum, taking everything to the opposition. The whole experience geed us up. We went out on Sunday with a point to prove.
I was left out of the 11 against Pakistan. We were playing on a wicket that had been used three times already and we’d seen it turn in the first game of the day – South Africa against Scotland – so we decided to play two spinners. The balance of the side worked brilliantly. Graeme came in and bowled fantastically. Adil just nailed it, too. The Dutch game was his first, but he’s a very fast learner and always very keen to learn. He spends a lot of time with Mushtaq Ahmed. Adil’s a very skilful bowler in the way that he can change his game straight away.
We set our stall out unbelievably well, with Kev and Luke and Owais, which put a bit of a downer on the Pakistani guys. In Twenty20 runs are so valuable; so when you see catches go down or misfields, you get that feeling that the opposition aren’t quite as up for it or haven’t worked quite as hard as you have. It gives you a little mental advantage.
Luke is doing fantastically - he seems to have recaptured the same form he had a couple of years ago in county cricket. It’s great to see him doing it in international cricket now - he’s such a great talent and a lovely fella as well.
I ended up playing a decent role in the win. Owais came off after six overs of the Pakistan innings - a hamstring twinge - and I was on the field for the rest of the innings. The ball seemed to follow me around, and I picked up two catches. I’m sure Owais will be fine for Thursday.
I was just really pleased to get to play a part. I do a lot of work with the fielding coach, Richard Halsall. Because I don’t bowl, 30 to 40 per cent of my training time is spent on fielding. I work on it quite hard. I played other sports as a kid - rugby, football, gaelic football, pretty much every sport - so I’m quite well co-ordinated and it comes naturally to me.
Monday I was back at home. Chilling out. Watching the cricket on TV. Going out for dinner with friends. We’re not ‘in-camp’ at this stage. We trained pretty hard ahead of the tournament but we all went our separate ways after Sunday. Of course I watched the Ireland win over Bangladesh. Fantastic. It’s great to see them doing so well. The O’Brien brothers thrive on playing in the big competitions and the spotlight being put on them. It was the first time I’d watched Ireland in a major competition - I was playing for them until April - and it’s brilliant to see them do so well. Playing with Ireland in the [2007] World Cup was the best time in my life. But for me, it was always the dream to play for England. Everyone in Ireland knew that and they’ve all been pleased for me. I haven’t heard one begrudging word.
England are meeting up again in Nottingham on Tuesday evening for a game of football. Playing not watching. I love it. I play upfront in the mould of, say, Robbie Keane. Playing for Spurs or Ireland, that is. We’ll practice together – cricket – on Wednesday, before the game against South Africa on Thursday. We’ve a good bunch of lads; as a newcomer, you feel at home very quickly. Everybody’s been really welcoming and easy to get along with. It’s been so easy coming into the changing room, especially as we’ve (mainly) been winning.
Eoin Morgan: how (and why) I play those amazing T20 shots
June 4, 2009 by Eoin Morgan
Filed under Eoin Morgan blog, Featured Content, Features, ICC World Twenty20
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When I started at Middlesex I was a conventional player. But I began to feel I needed other options. Limited-overs cricket is pushing the game forward and scores of 300 in 50-over cricket are par now. You can’t afford to be bogged down and scoring at a run a ball is no longer acceptable. In Twenty20, especially, you have to go at eight or nine an over at least.
I went through a period where I was getting a bit tied down and, not being the size of someone like Graeme Hick, I was looking at other scoring opportunities rather than just hitting over the top. That’s when I started to practise these sweeps.
I don’t think I’ve ever played out a maiden in Twenty20 cricket.
I started playing the sweep shots about three years ago. I hadn’t played much limited-overs cricket until then and Twenty20, in particular, has given players a real spur to improve. I’ve practised the shots hard – as much as I would practise the cut or a pull – and while I started out only playing them against the slow bowlers, I’ll play them against anyone now. I play them in the championship, too.
I think I played the reverse sweep twice during my last championship hundred, against Leicestershire.
You do have to premeditate the strokes, but the idea is that they feel like second nature. I don’t feel any need to play them just because people know I can. That’s the whole point of practice; it becomes instinctive. I still hit most of my sixes over mid-wicket with flicks off the seamers.
It’s great to put some pressure on the bowler; to make them change their plans; to get them wondering where they’re going to bowl next. Sometimes I’ll play the shot just to get them to change the field.
Often they’ll move mid-wicket to protect them from the reverse sweep and that opens up a gap. I like it when you can hear the fielding side becoming irritated. Bowlers hate the sweeps, too: they just don’t know where to bowl. It does make it very hard to set a field.
“The grip for the reverse-reverse sweep is the same as the grip for hurling, which is a sport I played when I was young, so I feel very comfortable with it. I read recently that the physical skills you learn between the ages of nine and 12 are hugely influential and that’s the period
I was playing hurling. I think it gave me strong and flexible wrists and an instinctive sense that the ball could be hit in different areas.”
A full T20 masterclass from Eoin, complete with sequence photography, appears in the July issue of SPIN, in shops June 5. Eoin will be blogging for Spin throughout the ICC World T20.
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