ANDREW STRAUSS

Strauss's first taste of international cricket came within England's tour from the sub-continent, but however only fulfil the function of the twelfth man despite considering himself better actually form of the overall game, Strauss was surprised being selected for the Eventually squad. Although he was not selected for your main team, Strauss did make an appearance within a tour match, starring with 51 in an opening partnership of 146 in the slow, but fluent innings. As England moved directly from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka, Strauss continued that will put pressure on England opener Vikram Solanki inside a tour match top scoring with 83, juxtaposed with Solanki's five ball duck and it was rewarded regarding his England debut inside a disastrous ten-wicket defeat where he was caught and bowled by fellow debutant Dinusha Fernandoand was subsequently omitted throughout the tour.

 The runners-up in the Champions Trophy took October off prior to starting an excursion of Africa in November. Their first stop was Zimbabwe, visiting the very first time since the 2003 World Cup political concerns and despite being minnows Strauss couldn't muster a half century from the 4%u20130 series win. In the final match, Strauss was called on to bowl an individual over, conceding three runs. England then gone to live in Strauss' native Africa for the five Test series taking them into the new year. His homecoming was an explosive one because he caught captain Graeme Smith over second ball and took to attain his first away century with 126 before scoring over 50 % of the team's second innings score while he steered them towards victory, again falling in short supply of twin hundreds with 94 not out still he became only the seventh Test player to record a hundred years on his home and away debut. Despite missing this accolade he did record back to back centuries, within the Boxing Day Test he top scored inside the first innings with only 25 because it seemed England were set for defeat, Strauss and Trescothick bolstered along side it by having an opening partnership stand of 273, top scoring with 136 to assist England push for victory though it would lead to a draw. Within the losing, third Test Strauss not only top scored in the first innings with 45, younger crowd had become the fourth fastest Englishman to reach 1,000 Test runs in 19 innings.Australian rival Justin Langer.

Captaincy

Strauss was appointed captain on 7 January 2009 after a rift between previous captain Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores became public. Subsequently, Pietersen resigned the captaincy after just 3 Test Matches, and Moores was sacked. This came after a rise of form in the 2008 Test Series in India, in which England lost and drew their two games.

In his first match as regular captain, against the West Indies at Sabina Park, Strauss and his team failed, Strauss scoring 7 and 9 as England were bowled out for 51 in the second innings to lose by an innings. After the fiasco of the abandoned Test match, Strauss subsequently had an excellent series with the bat, with scores of 169, 142 and 142 in the remaining three Tests giving him a series aggregate of 541 runs at an average of 67.62, but England were unable to force a victory in any of these three matches and consequently lost the series 1–0. As captain in the subsequent one-day series, which was drawn 2–2, Strauss scored 105 in Guyana^[147] and 79 not out from 61 balls at the Kensington He also captained the Twenty20 side to a six-wicket defeat. Strauss said to the BBC that he hoped that the whole captaincy debacle would be solved in time for the 2009 Ashes Series.

Strauss atoned for the defeat by the West Indies with a 2–0 home victories over the West Indies at home in both the Test and the ODI series. After that series, Strauss had a break from the international circuit while the World Twenty20 was underway. He played two county championship matches to little effect beyond a score of 97 against