The story
Few England captains have led from quite as deep a place as Andrew Strauss.
He made his Test debut against New Zealand in 2004 and scored a century on home turf at Lord's in the same match. By the time he retired eight years later he had played a hundred Tests for England, fifty of them as captain, and had done something no England captain had managed since 1987: won an Ashes series in Australia. The 2010/11 tour remains one of the cleanest pieces of away cricket England have produced in the modern era, and Strauss's quiet, methodical leadership was at the heart of it.
As a batsman he was compact, unflashy, and brutally reliable at the top of the order. Twenty one Test hundreds, more than seven thousand Test runs, and a habit of scoring them when the pressure was heaviest. Teammates talk about his calm in the dressing room more than they talk about any single innings. The captaincy came to him later than it might have, and he seemed to grow into it.
Since retiring in 2012 he has been the ECB's Director of Cricket, chaired the high performance review, written a thoughtful autobiography, and taken on the kind of institutional roles that usually go to people less interesting. Knighted in the 2019 New Year Honours. Lost his wife Ruth to cancer in 2018 and has been a vocal supporter of the Ruth Strauss Foundation since.
Career highlights
- 100 Tests for England, 50 as captain
- Ashes winner 2009 (home) and 2010/11 (first England captain to win in Australia since 1987)
- 21 Test hundreds including 177 on debut at Lord's versus New Zealand
- ECB Director of Cricket from 2015 to 2018
- Knighted in 2019 for services to cricket
- Founder of the Ruth Strauss Foundation supporting families facing cancer
