I took retirement due to poor batting form: Andrew Strauss

After Andrew Strauss’ retirement, England are all set to make their first Test campaign under the command of new skipper Alastair Cook. The side is due to visit India for a four-match series next month, and it will be interesting to see how the Poms perform
without Strauss, who took them to the top of Test rankings.

The left-hander decided to quit international cricket just a few days of Kevin Pietersen’s text messages controversy. However, he again dismissed the notion that Pietersen’s saga had any role in his decision, saying that he retired just because of his poor
batting form.

"Maybe it actually makes it easier for the team that I’m not there because some of it was directed to me. It would have been harder if I’d stayed," Strauss said in a freewheeling interview to The Guardian newspaper.

"I had noticed signs that my batting was going backwards. I was starting to feel a bit old and that’s not a good place to be as a professional athlete. I first felt it 12 months ago."

"I didn’t have a great summer in 2011 and then over the winter I didn’t play particularly well. I had a bit of a resurgence against West Indies but I felt like I was swimming against the tide."

"If I’m brutally honest, by the time we reached World No. 1, I had ticked off everything I’d wanted to achieve. It’s then hard to keep yourself hungry and motivated as captain. I also wasn’t as mobile in the field. My agility was dropping."

"One of my favourite shots – the pull – was one I wasn’t playing very often and I couldn’t work out why. So maybe my reactions were slowing down. I loved captaining and trying to win games – but I wasn’t enjoying batting anymore."

The 35-year-old played in 100 Tests, scoring over 7000 runs at an excellent average of 40.91. He also led the side to two emphatic Ashes victories. His ODI stats are also quite impressive as well. In 127 games, the left-handed batsman scored 4205 seconds,
including six wonderful centuries.

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Oct 23 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