Steve Finn salutes Andrew Strauss

England’s lanky fast bowler Steven Finn has paid special tribute to retiring Test captain Andrew Strauss for his ‘masterful’ leadership that helped the side do wonders at the international level.

Strauss decided to retire professional cricket on Wednesday. Michael Atherton, former English skipper, believes Strauss made the right move at the right time, as his batting form had been in gentle decline over the past 12 months.

However, a lot of cricket pundits are still surprised over Strauss’ sudden move, and feel that Kevin Pietersen’s controversial text messages promoted the skipper to call it a day.

Keeping all the controversies aside, Finn expressed disappointment over Strauss’ retirement, and said that he has always been a motivation for the youngsters.

"It’s obviously disappointing to see Straussy leave us as captain and leave cricket altogether. He was a fantastic captain and it was great to play with him for Middlesex since I was 16 or 17 years old. To grow up with him around has been fantastic. He’s
achieved so much in an England shirt and been such an inspirational leader for the group and for me personally,” said Finn.

"He’s always helped young players and he’s given plenty their opportunity. All the young players and all the people who have made their debuts under him have had a very pleasant experience. He was a masterful captain in the way he went about dealing with
those sorts of things," added the tall quick bowler.

After Strauss’ departure, the responsibility of leading the Test side has been given to Alastair Cook, who took over as ODI captain last year. Finn uttered that Cook has been doing the job very well, and the side will keep doing well under his command.

"Moving forward Alastair has done very well as one-day captain and we’ve played a great brand of one-day cricket under him. We’re looking forward to doing that in the Test matches now. Obviously we’re disappointed and sad that Andrew has made this decision
but the most important thing now is that we move forward under Alastair’s captaincy and try to get better," he uttered.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=31889

Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Aug 31 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry