Andrew Strauss basks in Ashes glory with one eye on Sydney test
English captain Andrew Strauss is a content man as he retains the Ashes for his country by leading his team to another decimation of the old enemy http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 in the fourth test of the five match series played at the historic Melbourne Cricket
Ground.
The innings and 158 runs win sealed an unassailable 2-1 win with one test match to go at Sydney Cricket Ground from the 2nd of January. Even a defeat at Sydney would mean nothing more than a drawn series with Ashes remaining
with the defending champions England.
While the English team basks in the Ashes glory, Strauss wants to drive one final nail in the Aussie coffin and that nail would be coming in the form of a triumph in Sydney and a 3-1 series win.
"Our objective was to come out here and win the series," Strauss said. "We have not achieved that yet. It is reassuring to know the Ashes are going to remain in England for another couple of years, but it will leave a very sour taste in
the mouth if we are not able to go on and convert our position into a series win in Sydney. We should enjoy tonight and rightly so, but it is back to square one for Sydney."
"In reality the job is a long way off being done," he added. "This is one series and as a side we have still got a lot of goals we want to achieve. English cricket is not just about winning the Ashes”.
Strauss added that he now wants to move on and concentrate on making the English team the number one test team in the world, to reach there they would have to beat the best teams in the world.
The challenge would come their way next English summer as they host the current number one test team http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 in a four test match series, Strauss already is setting his sights on that encounter.
"We have to look forward to the future and get our team up those rankings and to be the world's number one at some stage. That is the ultimate goal for us and we have to take a lot of small steps on the way to doing that including India
next summer is an important step on that way. I get the feeling we can still improve as a side and that is very motivating."
The English captain also reflected on the bench strength of his squad adding that the reserve players also played their part in the Ashes triumph which indicates that there was a lot of talent in the often maligned English county cricket.
"I always thought there was a huge amount of talent at our disposal," Strauss said. "Maybe we didn't realise quite how much there was, the likes of Tremlett, Shahzad, Bresnan and Trotty”.
Although pacer Ajmal Shehzad and spinner http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Monty-Panesar-c2024 stayed on the bench through out the first four tests, Chris Tremlett and Tim Bresnan played important roles in the Melbourne test.
Jonathan Trott was another played that made a real impact on the series with two tons, taking his Ashes century tally to three from only five matches.
At this rate the English team are set to join the South Africans and Indians in the battle for the top slot in test cricket, the three teams are bunched together at the top of the rankings governed by the International Cricket Council.
It remains to be seen if Strauss can carry the momentum forward and make his team the best in the world in the longest format of the game, for the time being though he mulls over his achievements that have placed him in the folklore of
English cricket for good.
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