Bradford Bulls and Harlequins hit the high notes when Super League’s annual roadshow visited Scotland for the first time for a seven-match festival at Murrayfield.
Nine years after their Challenge Cup final defeat of Leeds at the same venue, Bradford completed a stirring 32-16 victory over Wakefield Trinity after Harlequins had beaten Salford City Reds 24-16 on the opening day of Magic Weekend.
After two years at the Millennium stadium in Cardiff, the event was switched to Edinburgh once the Scotland RU and the Scottish tourist board made the Rugby Football League a financial offer they couldn’t refuse. The 55,000 fans who headed north were expected to generate £10m for the local economy and created a carnival atmosphere in and around Murrayfield.
The 67,800-capacity stadium was almost half full for the West Yorkshire derby between Wakefield Trinity and Bradford. The Bulls have made their worst start to a Super League season, losing six of their opening 10 matches. However two of their wins came against Leeds and St Helens, victories which suggest it would be unwise to write them off.
Bradford dominated the opening period but were forced into a desperate rearguard action following the resumption when Wakefield staged a spirited fightback from being 20-6 down.
The Bulls made a flying start with the first of two tries scored before the interval by Paul Sykes, who breezed through on the right from a sweet pass by Ben Jeffries. Jeffries, the former Wakefield stand-off, also worked the move that led to Sykes claiming his second after Terry Newton had extended Bradford’s advantage and featured in the sequence that brought the try of the match on 35 minutes.
The try was scored by Steve Menzies, who tumbled over the line between the posts after Jeffries acted as the link man in a surging 50m break by winger Rikki Sheriffe.
Wakefield, who had kept in touch with a converted try by their captain Jason Demetriou, rallied in the second half to close to within four points with further tries from Steve Snitch and Matt Blaymire only for replacement Mike Worrincy to make the game safe for Bradford with a late try before Sykes completed hs hat-trick in the closing stages.
Earlier, Harlequins emerged victorious in a dour match against Salford who were unable to capitalise on the creative efforts of Richard Myler, the 18-year-old who is expected to become the next England scrum-half.
Myler scored one try in the first half and set up another for his half-back partner Stefan Ratchford but the City Reds were ground down by opponents who made the most of the chances they created.
Quins’ most potent threat came from Luke Dorn, the former Salford stand-off who wielded an even greater influence than Myler by scoring a try and playing a role in two of his side’s three other touchdowns. Dorn’s try on 72 minutes effectively secured the two points for Harlequins, who had led 12-10 at the interval with tries from second row Luke Williamson and Tony Clubb, the exciting Londoner who cut a swathe through the heart of the Salford defence to reach the line with a surging run.
A slick passing move on the hour ended with Dorn putting centre David Howell through for a fine try and though Salford closed the gap with a try by Stefan Ratchford, the 20-year-old stand-off’s second, Quins held out to win.
Source:The times
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Oxx shows skill with Sea The Stars
A quietly spoken and studious Irishman trained the winner of the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket yesterday. But, for once in recent years, it was not Aidan O’Brien who took home the spoils but the grey-haired John Oxx and his bay colt Sea The Stars, only his second runner in the race.
Oxx has long been the understated genius of the training ranks, a man of courtesy and integrity who will tell it as it is, in the gentlest of tones. In the aftermath of Sea The Star’s comfortable victory over the Rowley Mile, Oxx was categoric about his plans. “The Derby will be his next race,” said the trainer. Thankfully, then, there will be none of the controversy that accompanied New Approach’s journey from certain non-runner to Derby winner a year ago.
Remarkably, Oxx has had only one previous runner in the English 2,000 Guineas. His first was Azamour, who finished third here in 2004 and went on to win twice at Royal Ascot (once when the meeting was held at York), the Irish Champion Stakes and the King George. If Sea The Stars can have a career even half as successful as Azamour’s, he will be worth his weight in gold, not least for his jockey, Mick Kinane, who won the first of his four colts’ Classics 19 years ago on Tirol and will turn 50 in June.
“The older you get, the more people are waiting for you to stumble and fall,” said Kinane. “But I’m not ready for that yet.”
No wonder. Kinane’s smile in the winners’ enclosure said it all. Jockeys wait a lifetime for horses with the class and speed of Sea The Stars to enter their dreams and, though he is not the kind of man to hold a grudge, the fact that he has won the 2,000 Guineas on a half-brother to Galileo, on whom he won the Derby for his old employers at Ballydoyle, will only add to the sense of achievement.
Kinane was replaced at Ballydoyle by Jamie Spencer and, by an irony, it was Spencer, on the 3-1 favourite, Delegator, who had to be second best to Kinane yesterday. Kinane was still wondering how Oxx had managed to snatch Sea The Stars, a handsome son of Cape Cross, from under the noses of the shrewd men from Ballydoyle.
While the eyes of many on the Rowley Mile were drawn to Delegator, who had shown such a devastating turn of foot last month to land the Craven Stakes, Kinane tucked Sea The Stars into the pack on the stands side. When Delegator, who had not been confirmed as a certain runner until after his trainer Brian Meehan had walked the course yesterday morning, was pulled out to challenge on the far side as the race began to get serious, the crowd started to roar home their champion. Only Kinane and Oxx knew the truth.
“I was always going to win from a long way out,” said Kinane. “It was just a matter of getting there in my own time. He was a bit babyish going down the hill.”
Though sent off at 8-1, behind Delegator and the two Ballydoyle challengers, Rip Van Winkle and Mastercraftsman, there had been some concern about Sea The Star’s fitness for such an early-season appointment. Suffering from a viral infection in March, the colt had also worked poorly on soft ground last week. Back on the good-to-firm at Newmarket, he never missed a beat.
The question that will occupy experts from now to Derby Day is whether the Guineas winner can extend his range to a mile and a half round Epsom.
“He’s going to be a good ride,” said Kinane. “He has all the qualities of a top-class horse. He’s good, maybe great, and he’s got a great temperament, so Epsom won’t faze him. He’s turned up and won the best Derby trial.” Kinane certainly needs no persuading and Stan James, yesterday’s sponsor, went 4-1 Sea The Stars for Epsom.
Besides the winner, Irish-trained horses filled four of the first five places, with Gan Amhras third for Jim Bolger and the Ballydoyle pair fourth (Rip Van Winkle) and fifth (Mastercraftsman).
Given that Ravens Pass finished fourth last year before winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic five months later and that Johnny Murtagh made eye-catching progress through the field to finish barely two and a half lengths behind the winner, Rip Van Winkle looks sure to enjoy a profitable season.
The same can be said of Delegator, who found the whole experience a bit too much and, according to Meehan, did not relish the ground. There will be other days. “It just got a bit quick for him from the two-furlong pole,” said Spencer. “He’s run a massive race and there are no excuses.”
Today, the fillies have their turn on the Rowley Mile in the 1,000 Guineas, also sponsored by Stan James, with Rainbow View, trained by John Gosden, a strong favourite. Followers of unsung heroes, though, will relish the prospect of victory for Rae Guest, who trains Serious Attitude, the 6-1 second favourite, and Alan Bailey, whose Aspen Darlin has better form than odds of 33-1 suggest. Bailey, a trainer for 35 years, has compared his filly to Posh Spice. “She’s skinny as a rake but with a touch of class,” he says. John Oxx could not have put it better.
Source:The times
Oxx has long been the understated genius of the training ranks, a man of courtesy and integrity who will tell it as it is, in the gentlest of tones. In the aftermath of Sea The Star’s comfortable victory over the Rowley Mile, Oxx was categoric about his plans. “The Derby will be his next race,” said the trainer. Thankfully, then, there will be none of the controversy that accompanied New Approach’s journey from certain non-runner to Derby winner a year ago.
Remarkably, Oxx has had only one previous runner in the English 2,000 Guineas. His first was Azamour, who finished third here in 2004 and went on to win twice at Royal Ascot (once when the meeting was held at York), the Irish Champion Stakes and the King George. If Sea The Stars can have a career even half as successful as Azamour’s, he will be worth his weight in gold, not least for his jockey, Mick Kinane, who won the first of his four colts’ Classics 19 years ago on Tirol and will turn 50 in June.
“The older you get, the more people are waiting for you to stumble and fall,” said Kinane. “But I’m not ready for that yet.”
No wonder. Kinane’s smile in the winners’ enclosure said it all. Jockeys wait a lifetime for horses with the class and speed of Sea The Stars to enter their dreams and, though he is not the kind of man to hold a grudge, the fact that he has won the 2,000 Guineas on a half-brother to Galileo, on whom he won the Derby for his old employers at Ballydoyle, will only add to the sense of achievement.
Kinane was replaced at Ballydoyle by Jamie Spencer and, by an irony, it was Spencer, on the 3-1 favourite, Delegator, who had to be second best to Kinane yesterday. Kinane was still wondering how Oxx had managed to snatch Sea The Stars, a handsome son of Cape Cross, from under the noses of the shrewd men from Ballydoyle.
While the eyes of many on the Rowley Mile were drawn to Delegator, who had shown such a devastating turn of foot last month to land the Craven Stakes, Kinane tucked Sea The Stars into the pack on the stands side. When Delegator, who had not been confirmed as a certain runner until after his trainer Brian Meehan had walked the course yesterday morning, was pulled out to challenge on the far side as the race began to get serious, the crowd started to roar home their champion. Only Kinane and Oxx knew the truth.
“I was always going to win from a long way out,” said Kinane. “It was just a matter of getting there in my own time. He was a bit babyish going down the hill.”
Though sent off at 8-1, behind Delegator and the two Ballydoyle challengers, Rip Van Winkle and Mastercraftsman, there had been some concern about Sea The Star’s fitness for such an early-season appointment. Suffering from a viral infection in March, the colt had also worked poorly on soft ground last week. Back on the good-to-firm at Newmarket, he never missed a beat.
The question that will occupy experts from now to Derby Day is whether the Guineas winner can extend his range to a mile and a half round Epsom.
“He’s going to be a good ride,” said Kinane. “He has all the qualities of a top-class horse. He’s good, maybe great, and he’s got a great temperament, so Epsom won’t faze him. He’s turned up and won the best Derby trial.” Kinane certainly needs no persuading and Stan James, yesterday’s sponsor, went 4-1 Sea The Stars for Epsom.
Besides the winner, Irish-trained horses filled four of the first five places, with Gan Amhras third for Jim Bolger and the Ballydoyle pair fourth (Rip Van Winkle) and fifth (Mastercraftsman).
Given that Ravens Pass finished fourth last year before winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic five months later and that Johnny Murtagh made eye-catching progress through the field to finish barely two and a half lengths behind the winner, Rip Van Winkle looks sure to enjoy a profitable season.
The same can be said of Delegator, who found the whole experience a bit too much and, according to Meehan, did not relish the ground. There will be other days. “It just got a bit quick for him from the two-furlong pole,” said Spencer. “He’s run a massive race and there are no excuses.”
Today, the fillies have their turn on the Rowley Mile in the 1,000 Guineas, also sponsored by Stan James, with Rainbow View, trained by John Gosden, a strong favourite. Followers of unsung heroes, though, will relish the prospect of victory for Rae Guest, who trains Serious Attitude, the 6-1 second favourite, and Alan Bailey, whose Aspen Darlin has better form than odds of 33-1 suggest. Bailey, a trainer for 35 years, has compared his filly to Posh Spice. “She’s skinny as a rake but with a touch of class,” he says. John Oxx could not have put it better.
Source:The times
Clive Woodward pledges help for Britain's Olympic shooters
Shooting will be the first sport to benefit from an Olympic coaching programme devised by Sir Clive Woodward, the man who steered the England rugby union team to a World Cup triumph in 2003.
In a move that suggests Woodward’s role in the 2012 set-up is finally settled more than two years after he joined the British Olympic Association as performance director, he will work with the Great Britain shooters in their preparation for the London Games. His programme is designed to fill in the gaps in expertise on world-class programmes caused by a lack of funding.
Shooting suffered the single biggest blow to its budget when it was handed a 75 per cent cut from £5.1 million to £1.2 million by UK Sport because of a £50 million funding gap for Olympic sport. It meant that 25 athletes lost their funding and the performance director his job.
Woodward will form a core team comprising Dave Reddin, who was England’s conditioning coach in the rugby union set-up, Marco Cardinale, the head of sports science at the Olympic Medical Institute, and an as yet unidentified “leadership expert”.
Their costs, as well as Woodward’s sizeable salary, are ultimately to be covered by the sponsorship expected to be raised through Team 2012, once the controversial collective rights agreement for Olympic athletes has been finalised.
While Woodward’s Olympic coaching programme is far from its original concept of embracing the top athletes in the most successful sports, it appears to be evolving into something that the smaller sports can work with.
Phil Boakes, chairman of British Shooting, was positive about Woodward’s involvement. “Who wouldn’t want Clive Woodward working with them if they had the option?” he said. “I am sure he can bring a number of qualities to most sports.”
Source:The times
In a move that suggests Woodward’s role in the 2012 set-up is finally settled more than two years after he joined the British Olympic Association as performance director, he will work with the Great Britain shooters in their preparation for the London Games. His programme is designed to fill in the gaps in expertise on world-class programmes caused by a lack of funding.
Shooting suffered the single biggest blow to its budget when it was handed a 75 per cent cut from £5.1 million to £1.2 million by UK Sport because of a £50 million funding gap for Olympic sport. It meant that 25 athletes lost their funding and the performance director his job.
Woodward will form a core team comprising Dave Reddin, who was England’s conditioning coach in the rugby union set-up, Marco Cardinale, the head of sports science at the Olympic Medical Institute, and an as yet unidentified “leadership expert”.
Their costs, as well as Woodward’s sizeable salary, are ultimately to be covered by the sponsorship expected to be raised through Team 2012, once the controversial collective rights agreement for Olympic athletes has been finalised.
While Woodward’s Olympic coaching programme is far from its original concept of embracing the top athletes in the most successful sports, it appears to be evolving into something that the smaller sports can work with.
Phil Boakes, chairman of British Shooting, was positive about Woodward’s involvement. “Who wouldn’t want Clive Woodward working with them if they had the option?” he said. “I am sure he can bring a number of qualities to most sports.”
Source:The times
John Daly battles to make cut at Spanish Open
John Daly passed the first and most important test on his return to competitive golf after four months on the sidelines when he made the halfway cut yesterday at the Spanish Open at the PGA Catalunya Golf Club, near Girona. In strong winds, the former Open champion dug deep in a level-par round of 72 for a two-under-par total of 142 that left him trailing Thomas Levet, of France, by 11 shots.
"It was brutal out there," Daly said. "There wasn't a hole where you could make up any ground." And while the only flamboyance from the American crowd-favourite came in the guise of another eye-watering shade of trousers - black, yellow and white diamonds - he at least looked as if he meant business on the course. He finished the day two shots inside the cut line and was able to look forward to playing four rounds competitively for the first time since the Hong Kong Open last November.
Levet, meanwhile, was left to reflect on another fine day's play. He made the most of the more benign morning conditions and followed up his first round of 64 with one of 67 to lead Soren Hansen, of Denmark, by two shots and Peter Lawrie, the defending champion from Ireland, by three. In 36 holes, the former Europe Ryder Cup player has picked up 12 birdies and an eagle and has dropped just one shot. That, in anyone's language - and he speaks seven of them - is winning golf.
Lawrie, who claimed his maiden victory at this tournament last year, although not on this course, has been conspicuous by his absence in any of the promotional material produced for the event. He is a player that "likes to go under the radar", but even he has admitted to being a little miffed to have been ignored in such a way. "A little bit of pride does mean I'd have to ask why there isn't a photograph of me in any shape or form," he said. Instead, he let his golf do the talking by following up his first-round 68 with one of 66.
Things were not so rosy for Colin Montgomerie. The Scot, who is planning to play six weeks on the trot, missed the cut after a round of 81, nine over par.
Source:The times
"It was brutal out there," Daly said. "There wasn't a hole where you could make up any ground." And while the only flamboyance from the American crowd-favourite came in the guise of another eye-watering shade of trousers - black, yellow and white diamonds - he at least looked as if he meant business on the course. He finished the day two shots inside the cut line and was able to look forward to playing four rounds competitively for the first time since the Hong Kong Open last November.
Levet, meanwhile, was left to reflect on another fine day's play. He made the most of the more benign morning conditions and followed up his first round of 64 with one of 67 to lead Soren Hansen, of Denmark, by two shots and Peter Lawrie, the defending champion from Ireland, by three. In 36 holes, the former Europe Ryder Cup player has picked up 12 birdies and an eagle and has dropped just one shot. That, in anyone's language - and he speaks seven of them - is winning golf.
Lawrie, who claimed his maiden victory at this tournament last year, although not on this course, has been conspicuous by his absence in any of the promotional material produced for the event. He is a player that "likes to go under the radar", but even he has admitted to being a little miffed to have been ignored in such a way. "A little bit of pride does mean I'd have to ask why there isn't a photograph of me in any shape or form," he said. Instead, he let his golf do the talking by following up his first-round 68 with one of 66.
Things were not so rosy for Colin Montgomerie. The Scot, who is planning to play six weeks on the trot, missed the cut after a round of 81, nine over par.
Source:The times
Boldest swinger in town
It is a nice walk from the first green to the second tee at the Old Head golf course near Kinsale. First a path through tall meadow grass, until you reach a clearing and the ruins of a 500-year-old lighthouse.
Around the ruins are the smaller ruins of six lighthouse keepers’ cottages. Wending your way through these ghosts of the 1500s, you marvel at the beauty of the setting and the history on this little headland in the southwest of Ireland. The guy walking two paces ahead, a golf bag hanging from his right shoulder, is Andrew Strauss, captain of the England cricket team and he, too, has history on his mind. We are in the spring of his reign and much rests on the days of summer; he’s got the Aussies, the Ashes and the onus of leadership. As the men who manned the fires of the old lighthouse might have said, someone’s got to do it.
We play 18 holes on a magical golf course, one whose magic we love but can’t figure out. It is a reintroduction to humility, slightly surprising for Strauss because he strikes the ball beautifully and plays off a five handicap.
It bothers him not at all because golf is his relaxation. Cricket, on the other hand, is his business. Into this part of his life, he pours every drop of who he is: his ambition and application, his dedication and determination but most of all, his utter belief that he can perform at the highest level. Now, the responsibilities are greater. He has to be the leader, the judge of which way the wind blows; there for the others, today an arm over a shoulder, tomorrow the hard case.
You wonder how this reasonable and mild-mannered man will survive. Captain and opening batsman, his is the scalp the Aussies will want. So you ask the kind of question Brett Lee will ask. “The captaincy came with an issue: what to do about Kevin Pietersen’s sense of having been wronged. You could have said, ‘England need Pietersen, Pietersen needs England, let’s get on with it’. Or you could have decided you and Kevin needed to talk?”
“The latter,” he says. “Kevin and I sat down and talked about it a few times, mainly when I took over from him, which was a difficult situation for him, for me and for English cricket. There is a reason he is feeling hurt and he is justified in that. He felt very strongly that he was doing what was right for English cricket and I think he felt that he had been supported by the ECB and that suddenly the support disappeared.When I took over he said, ‘Straussy, you are going to have no problems from me, all I want to do is score as many runs as I can for England. That is all I’m interested in’.
“I had no problems with Kevin in the West Indies, none at all. Considering what he had been through, he was first-rate. There was a newspaper article that made it sound like he was unhappy and causing problems. That was very far from the case. He was just being honest at the time and maybe he should have thought a little bit more about how those comments might be perceived.
“You’re losing games, you’re a long way from home, you do get frustrated but whether the whole world needs to know how you’re feeling at that moment is another matter.”
NO MATTER where you stand on the Old Head golf course, it takes no more than a slightly mishit 7-iron to send your ball swimming with the fishes. Phil Mickelson shot 88 around here and he has talent. How talented is Strauss at cricket?
“On the way up, I never thought of myself as being that talented but I never felt that was going to stop me playing Test cricket. A lot of the guys I was competing with seemed to be a long way ahead of me, they looked better than me but they weren’t getting any more runs than me.”
If any young cricketer was going to be encouraged by numbers, it was Strauss. He thinks analytically, speaks matter-of-factly and if you want to know him, imagine him at the end of his fourth summer in Australia 12 years ago. He went there as a rookie, keen to learn from the Aussies and progressing all the time until he got a place at the English academy in Melbourne, where he worked under Rod Marsh.
At their end-of-term review, Marsh told Strauss he loved his attitude, wished more of England’s better young players were like him but, technically, there were issues that would hold him back. Four summers in Australia to end up the fourth-rated batsman at the English academy: what did that tell him? He drew just one conclusion; he wasn’t going to be fast-tracked.
He was born in Johannesburg 32 years ago and moved with his family to Melbourne when he was six. Eighteen months later, another job offer for his dad brought the family to England. His dad worked in insurance, at the executive end of that business, and the young Strausses were sent to public schools in England. Integration was easier for him than his sisters; they were older and trying to make their way in boarding school, he was young, still at day-school and being good at sport, he was quickly accepted.
Good at sport but by no means exceptional. In his time at Radley College, he was close to the best in his year at cricket and decent at rugby but few saw it as more than that. He read economics at Durham University, played cricket for the university and Middlesex’s second XI and weighed up job offers from the City.
There was no evidence to suggest he would ever play for his country. He’d never been picked for England’s underage teams and didn’t have the benefit of elite coaching. His future had seemed written in the cheques his parents made out to Radley College and Durham University. “I was good at maths, was doing economics at university and it was all lending itself to going down that route but it wasn’t something I was excited about,” he says.
“If there was a definitive moment, it came in my last year at university. I was studying and playing for Middlesex’s second team and I’d just had a shocking season. I was a naive public schoolboy playing with a lot of hard London boys, a kid who wasn’t used to failing. It hurt me and I gave up playing rugby, got myself fit and decided I would prove myself as a cricketer.”
First to the second-teamers at Middlesex and then, with his economics degree completed, he opted to give himself one year to see what he could do. He decamped to Australia, where he was an undistinguished performer but a brilliant pupil. “I wanted to play first-grade cricket but ended up playing second and third grade. They said, ‘Make enough runs, mate, you’ll move up a grade’. They didn’t care where I’d come from, who I was, what I’d done. Runs were all that mattered.
“It forced me to think about what I was doing, how it wasn’t enough to do what everyone else was doing. I had to start to take control of my career, find out what would make me better. It made me realise the importance of hunger and desire.” That first summer he met a young Australian actress, Ruth McDonald.
“From the first day, I loved Ruth’s outlook on life,” he says.
When did he know he loved her?
“As soon as I returned to England, I thought, ‘Okay, there is definitely something here because I am really missing her’.”
They have been together ever since. “Ruth has made some huge sacrifices, leaving her family and career behind and coming over here, spending lots of time on her own when I’m away touring with England. It is an incredible sacrifice on her part that we are together.”
At Middlesex, they could see he was very serious about his cricket but with his public school background, he knew little about the ways of the street. They tell a story about the day John Buchanan, who was then the coach, broke the squad into groups of four or five and asked each to come up with a plan for how the county should play one-day cricket. Strauss was his group’s spokesman and when he began speaking in his best Radley College accent, there was audible chuckling from the wise guys.
Strauss paused and, clearly annoyed, said: “I see no reason for humour,” which in his posh voice was about the funniest thing any of those players had ever heard and they went into spasms of uncontrollable laughter. To his credit, the orator allowed himself a smile. It didn’t take him long to learn, it never would. When Angus Fraser unexpectedly retired as Middlesex captain, the 24-year-old Strauss was parachuted into his place.
Those with the capacity to learn invariably come up with answers and Strauss progressed at Middlesex; a season with an average in the low 30s was followed by one in the high 30s, then mid-40s, and suddenly his batting average was 50 and England’s selectors wanted to know more about him.
“I was fortunate to have some good senior players to learn from,” he says. “Justin Langer, in particular, epitomised a lot of what I admire in a cricketer, the determination to make the best of himself. After long days in the field, he would go out and do 100 shuttle runs. Always 100 because that’s what he was about, 100 runs. No-one told him to do those runs.” Strauss discovered what worked for him. He kept a diary of his performances; partly to clarify things in his mind but also because he realised that by getting it onto a page, he cleared it from his mind.
Writing about difficulties helped in the search for solutions and he has become an avid reader of a certain type of book. “Books about people getting the best out of themselves. Motivational, analytical books. There is a huge amount you can learn from other people, provided you don’t blindly follow. You use the bits good for you and you never look for a magic formula because there isn’t one.”
He says he doesn’t feel the need to be captain but that it is a job he can do. “It brings me out of myself, forces me to perform better and it makes me more appreciative of the overall environment. Every England captain seems to get an initial boost and then the demands wear you down. So far it has had a positive effect on my game and I’m enjoying the off-field stuff.”
His relationship with the new coach, Andy Flower, is excellent. They are similar characters; straightforward, low-key and thoughtful men who like to go about things quietly. Too alike for England’s good? “I think that is a valid point of view. Certainly two different personalities driving each other forward can work but, in an overall sense, I think the advantages of working with someone you like outweigh the disadvantages. We have seen how destructive it can be when the coach and captain are not able to work together.”
At the beginning of this Ashes summer, are the team in the same place at the same point as they were four years ago?
“It is nice that you put it so politely. No, we’re definitely not. That is the reality. We’ve had a pretty tumultuous 12 months. There has been a huge upheaval. We don’t have that huge momentum going into the series that we had in 2005 but that doesn’t mean there is any less chance of us winning the Ashes.”
How come?
“If you were facing the 2005 Australian team, you would be more concerned but Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Langer and Hayden are all gone. I don’t want to knock the replacements because they have done well but with those five guys, Australia’s aura of invincibility went as well. They’re still a very good side, we’ll need to play very well and make use of our conditions to beat them but it is not unattainable, not by any means unattainable.”
You ask about England heroes from the 2005 team who are still playing but for one reason or another are not now in the squad. Ian Bell, Steve Harmison, Michael Vaughan.
“It is dangerous to live in the past, and I think it is one thing we have been guilty of since 2005. ‘Get those 11 players on the pitch and everything will be fine’. That’s just not the reality. What you’re hoping is that Steve bowls a lot of overs for Durham and takes lots of wickets, that Ian and Michael get lots of runs for their counties. It’s always up to the players themselves.”
This need for each player to take control of his own career is, perhaps, the most fundamental of Strauss’s principles. “I want the England players to be responsible for their own games, and for decisions they take out on the pitch, so that when we win, it is not about the captain or the coach. The more responsibility taken by the players, the healthier it is for the team.”
WE WERE dolefully reminiscing in the locker room about the severity of the beating inflicted by the Old Head on our respective golf games. In his entire life he had never lost so many balls. “You know,” he said, “I think we would have been much better if we’d had caddies.”
And what, I thought, about players taking responsibility for their own performance, not looking for excuses. Thought about it but remained silent.
His relationship with the new coach, Andy Flower, is excellent. They are similar characters; straightforward, low-key and thoughtful men who like to go about things quietly. Too alike for England’s good? “I think that is a valid point of view. Certainly two different personalities driving each other forward can work but, in an overall sense, I think the advantages of working with someone you like outweigh the disadvantages. We have seen how destructive it can be when the coach and captain are not able to work together.”
At the beginning of this Ashes summer, are the team in the same place at the same point as they were four years ago?
“It is nice that you put it so politely. No, we’re definitely not. That is the reality. We’ve had a pretty tumultuous 12 months. There has been a huge upheaval. We don’t have that huge momentum going into the series that we had in 2005 but that doesn’t mean there is any less chance of us winning the Ashes.”
How come?
“If you were facing the 2005 Australian team, you would be more concerned but Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Langer and Hayden are all gone. I don’t want to knock the replacements because they have done well but with those five guys, Australia’s aura of invincibility went as well. They’re still a very good side, we’ll need to play very well and make use of our conditions to beat them but it is not unattainable, not by any means unattainable.”
You ask about England heroes from the 2005 team who are still playing but for one reason or another are not now in the squad. Ian Bell, Steve Harmison, Michael Vaughan.
“It is dangerous to live in the past, and I think it is one thing we have been guilty of since 2005. ‘Get those 11 players on the pitch and everything will be fine’. That’s just not the reality. What you’re hoping is that Steve bowls a lot of overs for Durham and takes lots of wickets, that Ian and Michael get lots of runs for their counties. It’s always up to the players themselves.”
This need for each player to take control of his own career is, perhaps, the most fundamental of Strauss’s principles. “I want the England players to be responsible for their own games, and for decisions they take out on the pitch, so that when we win, it is not about the captain or the coach. The more responsibility taken by the players, the healthier it is for the team.”
WE WERE dolefully reminiscing in the locker room about the severity of the beating inflicted by the Old Head on our respective golf games. In his entire life he had never lost so many balls. “You know,” he said, “I think we would have been much better if we’d had caddies.”
And what, I thought, about players taking responsibility for their own performance, not looking for excuses. Thought about it but remained silent.
Source:The times
Around the ruins are the smaller ruins of six lighthouse keepers’ cottages. Wending your way through these ghosts of the 1500s, you marvel at the beauty of the setting and the history on this little headland in the southwest of Ireland. The guy walking two paces ahead, a golf bag hanging from his right shoulder, is Andrew Strauss, captain of the England cricket team and he, too, has history on his mind. We are in the spring of his reign and much rests on the days of summer; he’s got the Aussies, the Ashes and the onus of leadership. As the men who manned the fires of the old lighthouse might have said, someone’s got to do it.
We play 18 holes on a magical golf course, one whose magic we love but can’t figure out. It is a reintroduction to humility, slightly surprising for Strauss because he strikes the ball beautifully and plays off a five handicap.
It bothers him not at all because golf is his relaxation. Cricket, on the other hand, is his business. Into this part of his life, he pours every drop of who he is: his ambition and application, his dedication and determination but most of all, his utter belief that he can perform at the highest level. Now, the responsibilities are greater. He has to be the leader, the judge of which way the wind blows; there for the others, today an arm over a shoulder, tomorrow the hard case.
You wonder how this reasonable and mild-mannered man will survive. Captain and opening batsman, his is the scalp the Aussies will want. So you ask the kind of question Brett Lee will ask. “The captaincy came with an issue: what to do about Kevin Pietersen’s sense of having been wronged. You could have said, ‘England need Pietersen, Pietersen needs England, let’s get on with it’. Or you could have decided you and Kevin needed to talk?”
“The latter,” he says. “Kevin and I sat down and talked about it a few times, mainly when I took over from him, which was a difficult situation for him, for me and for English cricket. There is a reason he is feeling hurt and he is justified in that. He felt very strongly that he was doing what was right for English cricket and I think he felt that he had been supported by the ECB and that suddenly the support disappeared.When I took over he said, ‘Straussy, you are going to have no problems from me, all I want to do is score as many runs as I can for England. That is all I’m interested in’.
“I had no problems with Kevin in the West Indies, none at all. Considering what he had been through, he was first-rate. There was a newspaper article that made it sound like he was unhappy and causing problems. That was very far from the case. He was just being honest at the time and maybe he should have thought a little bit more about how those comments might be perceived.
“You’re losing games, you’re a long way from home, you do get frustrated but whether the whole world needs to know how you’re feeling at that moment is another matter.”
NO MATTER where you stand on the Old Head golf course, it takes no more than a slightly mishit 7-iron to send your ball swimming with the fishes. Phil Mickelson shot 88 around here and he has talent. How talented is Strauss at cricket?
“On the way up, I never thought of myself as being that talented but I never felt that was going to stop me playing Test cricket. A lot of the guys I was competing with seemed to be a long way ahead of me, they looked better than me but they weren’t getting any more runs than me.”
If any young cricketer was going to be encouraged by numbers, it was Strauss. He thinks analytically, speaks matter-of-factly and if you want to know him, imagine him at the end of his fourth summer in Australia 12 years ago. He went there as a rookie, keen to learn from the Aussies and progressing all the time until he got a place at the English academy in Melbourne, where he worked under Rod Marsh.
At their end-of-term review, Marsh told Strauss he loved his attitude, wished more of England’s better young players were like him but, technically, there were issues that would hold him back. Four summers in Australia to end up the fourth-rated batsman at the English academy: what did that tell him? He drew just one conclusion; he wasn’t going to be fast-tracked.
He was born in Johannesburg 32 years ago and moved with his family to Melbourne when he was six. Eighteen months later, another job offer for his dad brought the family to England. His dad worked in insurance, at the executive end of that business, and the young Strausses were sent to public schools in England. Integration was easier for him than his sisters; they were older and trying to make their way in boarding school, he was young, still at day-school and being good at sport, he was quickly accepted.
Good at sport but by no means exceptional. In his time at Radley College, he was close to the best in his year at cricket and decent at rugby but few saw it as more than that. He read economics at Durham University, played cricket for the university and Middlesex’s second XI and weighed up job offers from the City.
There was no evidence to suggest he would ever play for his country. He’d never been picked for England’s underage teams and didn’t have the benefit of elite coaching. His future had seemed written in the cheques his parents made out to Radley College and Durham University. “I was good at maths, was doing economics at university and it was all lending itself to going down that route but it wasn’t something I was excited about,” he says.
“If there was a definitive moment, it came in my last year at university. I was studying and playing for Middlesex’s second team and I’d just had a shocking season. I was a naive public schoolboy playing with a lot of hard London boys, a kid who wasn’t used to failing. It hurt me and I gave up playing rugby, got myself fit and decided I would prove myself as a cricketer.”
First to the second-teamers at Middlesex and then, with his economics degree completed, he opted to give himself one year to see what he could do. He decamped to Australia, where he was an undistinguished performer but a brilliant pupil. “I wanted to play first-grade cricket but ended up playing second and third grade. They said, ‘Make enough runs, mate, you’ll move up a grade’. They didn’t care where I’d come from, who I was, what I’d done. Runs were all that mattered.
“It forced me to think about what I was doing, how it wasn’t enough to do what everyone else was doing. I had to start to take control of my career, find out what would make me better. It made me realise the importance of hunger and desire.” That first summer he met a young Australian actress, Ruth McDonald.
“From the first day, I loved Ruth’s outlook on life,” he says.
When did he know he loved her?
“As soon as I returned to England, I thought, ‘Okay, there is definitely something here because I am really missing her’.”
They have been together ever since. “Ruth has made some huge sacrifices, leaving her family and career behind and coming over here, spending lots of time on her own when I’m away touring with England. It is an incredible sacrifice on her part that we are together.”
At Middlesex, they could see he was very serious about his cricket but with his public school background, he knew little about the ways of the street. They tell a story about the day John Buchanan, who was then the coach, broke the squad into groups of four or five and asked each to come up with a plan for how the county should play one-day cricket. Strauss was his group’s spokesman and when he began speaking in his best Radley College accent, there was audible chuckling from the wise guys.
Strauss paused and, clearly annoyed, said: “I see no reason for humour,” which in his posh voice was about the funniest thing any of those players had ever heard and they went into spasms of uncontrollable laughter. To his credit, the orator allowed himself a smile. It didn’t take him long to learn, it never would. When Angus Fraser unexpectedly retired as Middlesex captain, the 24-year-old Strauss was parachuted into his place.
Those with the capacity to learn invariably come up with answers and Strauss progressed at Middlesex; a season with an average in the low 30s was followed by one in the high 30s, then mid-40s, and suddenly his batting average was 50 and England’s selectors wanted to know more about him.
“I was fortunate to have some good senior players to learn from,” he says. “Justin Langer, in particular, epitomised a lot of what I admire in a cricketer, the determination to make the best of himself. After long days in the field, he would go out and do 100 shuttle runs. Always 100 because that’s what he was about, 100 runs. No-one told him to do those runs.” Strauss discovered what worked for him. He kept a diary of his performances; partly to clarify things in his mind but also because he realised that by getting it onto a page, he cleared it from his mind.
Writing about difficulties helped in the search for solutions and he has become an avid reader of a certain type of book. “Books about people getting the best out of themselves. Motivational, analytical books. There is a huge amount you can learn from other people, provided you don’t blindly follow. You use the bits good for you and you never look for a magic formula because there isn’t one.”
He says he doesn’t feel the need to be captain but that it is a job he can do. “It brings me out of myself, forces me to perform better and it makes me more appreciative of the overall environment. Every England captain seems to get an initial boost and then the demands wear you down. So far it has had a positive effect on my game and I’m enjoying the off-field stuff.”
His relationship with the new coach, Andy Flower, is excellent. They are similar characters; straightforward, low-key and thoughtful men who like to go about things quietly. Too alike for England’s good? “I think that is a valid point of view. Certainly two different personalities driving each other forward can work but, in an overall sense, I think the advantages of working with someone you like outweigh the disadvantages. We have seen how destructive it can be when the coach and captain are not able to work together.”
At the beginning of this Ashes summer, are the team in the same place at the same point as they were four years ago?
“It is nice that you put it so politely. No, we’re definitely not. That is the reality. We’ve had a pretty tumultuous 12 months. There has been a huge upheaval. We don’t have that huge momentum going into the series that we had in 2005 but that doesn’t mean there is any less chance of us winning the Ashes.”
How come?
“If you were facing the 2005 Australian team, you would be more concerned but Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Langer and Hayden are all gone. I don’t want to knock the replacements because they have done well but with those five guys, Australia’s aura of invincibility went as well. They’re still a very good side, we’ll need to play very well and make use of our conditions to beat them but it is not unattainable, not by any means unattainable.”
You ask about England heroes from the 2005 team who are still playing but for one reason or another are not now in the squad. Ian Bell, Steve Harmison, Michael Vaughan.
“It is dangerous to live in the past, and I think it is one thing we have been guilty of since 2005. ‘Get those 11 players on the pitch and everything will be fine’. That’s just not the reality. What you’re hoping is that Steve bowls a lot of overs for Durham and takes lots of wickets, that Ian and Michael get lots of runs for their counties. It’s always up to the players themselves.”
This need for each player to take control of his own career is, perhaps, the most fundamental of Strauss’s principles. “I want the England players to be responsible for their own games, and for decisions they take out on the pitch, so that when we win, it is not about the captain or the coach. The more responsibility taken by the players, the healthier it is for the team.”
WE WERE dolefully reminiscing in the locker room about the severity of the beating inflicted by the Old Head on our respective golf games. In his entire life he had never lost so many balls. “You know,” he said, “I think we would have been much better if we’d had caddies.”
And what, I thought, about players taking responsibility for their own performance, not looking for excuses. Thought about it but remained silent.
His relationship with the new coach, Andy Flower, is excellent. They are similar characters; straightforward, low-key and thoughtful men who like to go about things quietly. Too alike for England’s good? “I think that is a valid point of view. Certainly two different personalities driving each other forward can work but, in an overall sense, I think the advantages of working with someone you like outweigh the disadvantages. We have seen how destructive it can be when the coach and captain are not able to work together.”
At the beginning of this Ashes summer, are the team in the same place at the same point as they were four years ago?
“It is nice that you put it so politely. No, we’re definitely not. That is the reality. We’ve had a pretty tumultuous 12 months. There has been a huge upheaval. We don’t have that huge momentum going into the series that we had in 2005 but that doesn’t mean there is any less chance of us winning the Ashes.”
How come?
“If you were facing the 2005 Australian team, you would be more concerned but Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Langer and Hayden are all gone. I don’t want to knock the replacements because they have done well but with those five guys, Australia’s aura of invincibility went as well. They’re still a very good side, we’ll need to play very well and make use of our conditions to beat them but it is not unattainable, not by any means unattainable.”
You ask about England heroes from the 2005 team who are still playing but for one reason or another are not now in the squad. Ian Bell, Steve Harmison, Michael Vaughan.
“It is dangerous to live in the past, and I think it is one thing we have been guilty of since 2005. ‘Get those 11 players on the pitch and everything will be fine’. That’s just not the reality. What you’re hoping is that Steve bowls a lot of overs for Durham and takes lots of wickets, that Ian and Michael get lots of runs for their counties. It’s always up to the players themselves.”
This need for each player to take control of his own career is, perhaps, the most fundamental of Strauss’s principles. “I want the England players to be responsible for their own games, and for decisions they take out on the pitch, so that when we win, it is not about the captain or the coach. The more responsibility taken by the players, the healthier it is for the team.”
WE WERE dolefully reminiscing in the locker room about the severity of the beating inflicted by the Old Head on our respective golf games. In his entire life he had never lost so many balls. “You know,” he said, “I think we would have been much better if we’d had caddies.”
And what, I thought, about players taking responsibility for their own performance, not looking for excuses. Thought about it but remained silent.
Source:The times
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