89 Facts About Andrew Strauss

Sir Andrew John Strauss was born on 2 March 1977 and is an English cricket administrator and former player, formerly the Director of Cricket for the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Andrew Strauss played county cricket for Middlesex, and captained the England national team in all formats of the game.

Andrew Strauss was known for his fielding strength at slip or in the covers.

Andrew Strauss made his first-class debut in 1998, and his One Day International debut in Sri Lanka in 2003.

Andrew Strauss quickly rose to fame on his Test match debut replacing the injured Michael Vaughan at Lord's against New Zealand in 2004.

Andrew Strauss suffered a drop in form during 2007, and as a result he was left out of the Test squad for England's tour of Sri Lanka, and announced that he was taking a break from cricket.

Andrew Strauss enjoyed success with three centuries, and retained the captaincy into 2009.

Andrew Strauss relinquished the Test captaincy and retired from all forms of professional cricket on 29 August 2012, following his 100th test, which concluded a series defeat by South Africa that saw the England Test team lose their number-one ranking.

Andrew Strauss left the job as the second-most successful captain of England in terms of wins, behind only his former opening partner Michael Vaughan.

Andrew Strauss became the ECB's Director of Cricket in 2015, shortly before the sacking of Peter Moores.

Andrew Strauss was educated at Caldicott School, a boys' prep school in Buckinghamshire, followed by Radley College, a public boarding school for boys in Oxfordshire.

Andrew Strauss studied economics at the University of Durham, and wrote his dissertation on supermodular games.

Andrew Strauss competed for the university rugby club as a fly-half, starting in the 3rd XV and soon moving up to the 2nd XV.

Graeme Fowler, his coach at the university, was eventually able to convince Andrew Strauss to focus exclusively on cricket:.

Andrew Strauss graduated in 1998 with an upper-second class BA degree.

Andrew Strauss is President of the Primary Club Juniors, a charity which helps fund blind cricket.

Andrew Strauss has a variety of nicknames ranging from Straussy, Levi and Johann, to the more obscure Lord Brocket, Mareman, The General, Jazzer, Muppet and Mr Potato Head.

Already Member of the Order of the British Empire, Andrew Strauss was promoted to Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2011 Birthday Honours.

Andrew Strauss has written several books on his professional career, Coming Into Play: My Life in Test Cricket, Testing Times: In Pursuit of the Ashes, Winning the Ashes Down Under: The Captains Story, and an autobiography, Driving Ambition, in 2014.

Politically, Andrew Strauss is a Conservative, raising money for them in a charity auction.

David Cameron tried to persuade Andrew Strauss to become an MP in 2013, but Andrew Strauss turned down the offer.

Thereafter, Andrew Strauss's stock rose quickly: his returns in 2001,2002 and 2003 were 1211 runs at an average of 45,1202 at 48 and 1529 at 51.

Andrew Strauss was appointed captain of Middlesex in 2002, following the retirement of Angus Fraser, and retained the post until the end of the 2004 season.

In late August 2011, Andrew Strauss hit his highest first-class score of 241 not out against Leicestershire, beating his previous best of 177.

Andrew Strauss was given another chance in the tour of the West Indies, even being called up to the Test squad owing to the injury of Mark Butcher.

Andrew Strauss contributed 66 to help win the final match, drawing the series.

Andrew Strauss returned home to start the 2004 English season but was chosen to make his Test debut for England after Vaughan sustained a knee injury in the nets.

Butcher declined to move up the order and batted third, meaning Andrew Strauss was asked to open the batting and Collingwood missed out on a place in the side.

Andrew Strauss made the first dismissal of the Test, catching Stephen Fleming off Simon Jones and was awarded Man of The Match for his efforts.

The performance by Andrew Strauss excelled his role as a filler for Vaughan, leading to Hussain retiring from cricket allowing for Vaughan to move down the order and Andrew Strauss retaining the role of opener opposite Marcus Trescothick.

Andrew Strauss' form declined over the series, with one half century in the second Test and his first Test duck along with a six in the third Test.

Andrew Strauss continued to make Lord's a talisman as he returned for the opening Test of the series against West Indies with another century opposite Robert Key's 221 in a winning effort; the two set the record for highest second wicket partnership against the West Indies.

Andrew Strauss's homecoming was an explosive one as he caught captain Graeme Smith off the second ball and went on to score his first away century with 126 before scoring over half of the team's second innings score as he steered them towards victory, again falling short of twin hundreds with 94 not out; still he became only the seventh Test player to record a century on his home and away debut.

Individually, Andrew Strauss posted 82* and 98 in the first and last matches against Bangladesh, with a One Day high score of 152 from 128 balls in the middle match but fared less well against Australia, never scoring more than 25 and only managing 2 in the tied final at Lord's.

Andrew Strauss was significantly shuffled down the order in England's inaugural Twenty20 International against Australia and made 18 in their 100 run win and in the losing NatWest Challenge scored favourably, but not notable, with two scores near 50.

The second Test proved to be a much more dramatic affair and Andrew Strauss improved somewhat on his showing at Lord's with an opening stand of 112 opposite Trescothick, falling two short of a half century to the spin of Shane Warne.

Once again Andrew Strauss made a notable catch in the field helping to dismiss captain Ponting again, Australia's second best batsman in the series, as well as sending fast bowler Glenn McGrath back to the pavilion for a duck.

Andrew Strauss was the only player to score two centuries, and made six catches, the second-highest number for an England fielder, behind Ian Bell.

Andrew Strauss started the tour nervously, with warm-up scores of two fives and a six, mustering 56 in the final warm-up innings.

Andrew Strauss returned for the One Day series but showed little improvement with only five runs in the tour match, but found more success shuffled down to third man, top scoring 94 to help England win the first match.

Andrew Strauss scored 26 runs in the low scoring, final match which England won but in between picked up a pair of ducks.

The emphatic, eight over victory was to be England's only One Day success on the tour as the final match saw India chase the runs victoriously with only five balls remaining with Andrew Strauss offering only 25.

Opening with Trescothick, Andrew Strauss fell two short of a half century to the bowling of Muttiah Muralitharan at the stroke of lunch, allowing Cook to walk out to the wicket afterwards with company.

Andrew Strauss went on to take the final wicket of Sri Lanka's first innings, Nuwan Kulasekara, catching him off Flintoff to allow England to enforce the follow-on which they could not capitalise on, forcing a draw.

Andrew Strauss recorded another half century in the third Test, though it was not enough to stave off a 134 run defeat.

Andrew Strauss turned things round drastically in the second Test with tight fielding that restricted Pakistan to under 250 in both innings while contributing 42 to England's high strike rate 461, allowing an emphatic innings victory in just three days.

Andrew Strauss performed less well in the one-off Twenty20 International, falling for a duck while Pakistan soared to victory with two overs to spare and his luck remained the same as the One Day series began.

Andrew Strauss scored two half centuries in three matches but the team as a whole played disastrously with only one victory over the West Indies.

Andrew Strauss started the tour badly, scoring only 71 runs from the first four innings along with a generally terrible display from England.

Andrew Strauss followed this with 88 in a warm-up match but in the following Test he was given out to dubious decisions in both innings, caught for 42 and LBW for a duck, with replays suggesting both decisions were harsh.

Andrew Strauss was omitted from the Twenty20 game but did play for the One Day series.

Andrew Strauss batted with England for the rest of the stage until England were knocked out; he would not play One Day cricket for England again until two years later.

Andrew Strauss' poor run of form continued through 2007, averaging a low 27 and failing to score a century with a top score of 96.

In late 2007, Andrew Strauss was not included in the Test squad for the tour of Sri Lanka, and Michael Vaughan was selected to take his position as opening batsman.

Andrew Strauss was thus omitted from England cricket fixtures over the winter.

Andrew Strauss returned to the Test squad for the tour of New Zealand, however made only four in the first warm-up match before hitting his own wicket.

Andrew Strauss was placed in the number three spot on the batting order, leaving Vaughan and Cook to open as they did in Sri Lanka.

Andrew Strauss continued to play poorly through the first two matches, and was dismissed for a duck in the first innings of the third.

Andrew Strauss was named England's man of the series for his 266 runs at an average of 66.50.

Andrew Strauss started on an average note being dismissed for 44 in England's only innings of the first match.

Andrew Strauss suffered in the second Test at Headlingly making just 27 runs in the first innings and a duck in the second.

Andrew Strauss failed in the first innings, being dismissed for six.

Andrew Strauss managed to keep his place for the India tour and immediately rewarded the selectors by making 123 in the first innings of the first Test match with the rest of the batting lagging behind.

Andrew Strauss became just the 10th Englishman to make two hundreds in the same Test match, with Marcus Trescothick being the last in 2004.

Andrew Strauss was appointed captain on 7 January 2009 after a rift between previous captain Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores became public.

Andrew Strauss captained the Twenty20 side to a six-wicket defeat.

Andrew Strauss said to the BBC that he hoped that the whole captaincy debacle would be solved in time for the 2009 Ashes Series.

Andrew Strauss played two county championship matches to little effect beyond a score of 97 against Essex.

On his domestic home ground, Andrew Strauss batted through the entire first day of the match for 161 runs, sharing an opening partnership of 196 with Alastair Cook.

Andrew Strauss contributed 32 to England's second innings, as Australia were set a target of 522 to win, a record if achieved.

Andrew Strauss contributed 55 to England's first innings of 332, before Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann unexpectedly combined to bowl Australia out for 160.

Andrew Strauss was named England's man of the series by Australian coach Tim Nielsen; he finished the series with an aggregate of 474 runs, at an average of 52.66.

Andrew Strauss stated on a number of occasions that, despite his own contributions, he was disenchanted by England's poor performances during their 6:1 defeat.

Andrew Strauss returned to the Test team in the home series against Bangladesh.

Andrew Strauss made two half-centuries as England won the two-match series.

England won the series, with Andrew Strauss making half-centuries in the second and third games.

When Bangladesh returned for the ODI series, Andrew Strauss scored a half-century in the first game and a career-best 154 in the third, in which he shared a stand of 250 with Jonathan Trott who made a century.

Andrew Strauss won the toss on the opening morning at the Gabba and elected to bat, however was caught at gully for a third-ball duck.

Andrew Strauss made his 19th Test hundred, eventually out for 110; stumped for the first time in his Test career.

Andrew Strauss won the toss at the MCG and elected to bowl on the Boxing Day Test.

In reply, Andrew Strauss and Cook had made a 159-run opening stand with Andrew Strauss passing 6,000 Test runs before being caught for 69.

In reply, Andrew Strauss made 60 from just 58 balls before being bowled by Ben Hilfenhaus.

In England's opening match of the ICC World cup 2011 against Netherlands, Andrew Strauss hit a better than run-a-ball 88 to get England off to a good start and help them clinch a 6 wicket victory.

Andrew Strauss maintained this good form the next game, scoring an impressive 158 off 145 chasing an imposing 339 which hosts India had set them.

Andrew Strauss duly stepped down from the ODI captaincy and retired from One Day International Cricket.

Andrew Strauss announced his retirement from cricket on 29 August 2012 after 100 test appearances.

Andrew Strauss was appointed to the newly created role of director of England cricket in May 2015 and his first act was to sack the incumbent coach Peter Moores.

Andrew Strauss oversaw the appointment of Trevor Bayliss as coach, and encouraged a greater emphasis to be given to limited overs cricket.

Andrew Strauss resigned his position on 3 October 2018, citing a wish to spend more time with his wife, Ruth, while she was undergoing treatment for lung cancer.