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When Andrew Strauss hit his career-saving hundred against New Zealand we were a bit worried. It’d be best if you read that article, but if you really can’t be bothered we’ll try and bluntly summarise.
New Zealand aren’t one of the better Test sides and Andrew Strauss’s performances might have been misleading. Same for Tim Ambrose (with the bat).
Before the New Zealand tour Strauss had been averaging in the 20s for about a year. Unless he has a great innings today, he’ll have averaged in the 20s again in this series. Did anything change in the meantime? We’re not damning him, but we are wondering.
Same with Tim Ambrose. It seems like England wicketkeepers’ Test lifespans just depend on who they play against.
We’d like to think that England’s selectors have some great insight and identify players accordingly, but it all seems a bit ‘suck it and see’. That approach wastes Test experience. Test experience is a valuable commodity.
The Ambrose century at the Basin was against some of the tiredest, wayward bowling you could ever see in your worst nightmare.
Even by NZ standards…