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Strauss recalled

Ted Corbett

LONDON: Andrew Strauss, who almost made two centuries on his Test debut and rose to be among the finest left-handed batsmen in the world in the next three years, has been recalled by England for the tour of New Zealand. Now the selectors have to find where he fits into the line-up and that will not be a task for the faint-hearted.

Strauss was dropped last summer following a poor run of form — after 43 Tests and 10 centuries — and left out of the tours of Sri Lanka so that he could work on those parts of his game that threatened to bring about his permanent downfall.

Cleverly, he chose to join Northern Districts — the team based on the town of Hamilton in North Island, New Zealand — so that the selectors would see he was preparing himself for the spring tour and today he had his reward with a place in the 16.

Prior dropped

David Graveney, now the chairman of selectors, issued a clear warning to the players as he discussed the other contentious issue — the dropping of wicketkeeper Matthew Prior. “We did not turn fifties into hundreds in Sri Lanka and we did not show the ruthlessness that we should have,” he said.

The squad: Tests: Michael Vaughan (Capt.), Tim Ambrose, James Anderson, Ian Bell, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Alastair Cook, Steve Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, Philip Mustard, Monty Panesar, Kevin Pietersen, Owais Shah, Ryan Sidebottom, Andrew Strauss and Graeme Swann.

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