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Strauss confident of bouncing back
KENSINGTON OVAL, BARBADOS: Captain Andrew Strauss is confident England can win the fourth Test without Andrew Flintoff.
The all-rounder will play no part in the penultimate match of the series in Barbados due to a hip problem, the latest in a long line of injuries which have interrupted his international career.
The tourists called up all-rounder Ravi Bopara and seamer Amjad Khan to cover for Flintoff, emphasising his worth to the England side.
But Strauss claims England have enough experience of playing without their key all-rounder to give them genuine hope of a series-levelling victory at the Kensington Oval.
“We’ve had to play without him quite a lot over the last few years and if you rest all your hopes on one man, sometimes the rest of the team don’t take the responsibility they need to,” Strauss said.
“We’ve found when he hasn’t played before the bowlers have stood up and performed and the batting unit has performed pretty well as well, so there is no reason we can’t win.
“We’d love him in the side but I don’t think that it affects our chances of winning. I still think we have a very good chance of winning with the bowlers we’ve got.
“It is just a case of three seamers standing up and doing the job rather than four. That just gives them more responsibility and in many ways you will get more out of bowlers that way.
“I think we get used to relying on Fred both as an attacking and defensive option, which is a great luxury to have, and when he’s not there then other bowlers have to put their hands up and take the wickets or bowl the maidens.”
Statistics appear to back Strauss up. His three Test wins as captain have come in games Flintoff has missed, while England have been more successful without Flintoff than with him since the 2005 Ashes.
He has played in half the 42 completed Tests since that heady summer, with England winning 10 of the 21 he has missed and only three of those in which he has played.
Despite being England’s premier all-rounder, he boasts just five hundreds and two five-wicket hauls in 75 Tests. (ECB) |
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Cric Contest Ratings |
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 Tests
ODIs
T-20
Combined |
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First ever Premier Ratings. Who leads whom? A unique formula devised by the criccontest team.  |
| Mohandas Menon |
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