Andrew Strauss looking forward for Ashes after redeeming England against Pakistan
England’s captain Andrew Strauss is now relishing the fact that controversy-ridden series against Pakistan is over and now the attention will be on the upcoming Ashes series in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746. However, he feels relieved after his side
grinded a convincing win in the decisive match of the well-fought ODI series against the visitors. Pakistan’s tour of England was marred by series of controversies including spot-fixing, ball-tempering and a brawl between players.
After winning the series, Strauss has appealed to the ICC to clean up the game of cricket in order to strengthen the image of the sport in the world. The latest victory over Pakistan is also a personal victory for Strauss as this
is the sixth trophy for England this summer under his captaincy. He played a crucial role in the victory against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 and as a result was awarded the Man-of-the-series award. But more importantly this victory brings redemption for English players who were
implicated in the match-fixing scandal by PCB’s Chairman http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128 after they lost the match at Oval. Additionally, the 4th match at Lord’s also created bad blood between two teams as Jonathan Trott and Wahab Riaz were involved in a pre-match scuffle. The
emotions exhibited by English team at the end of the match at http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Rose-c86842 Bowl clearly underlined the importance of this series to hosts. “It was a huge game of cricket really. It's been a very tough series at the end of a long summer. We've been to some pretty unpleasant
places as a team over the last few days, and we've had to show a lot of unity and togetherness. We came out today determined to finish the series on a high, and you could see how much it meant to us when the final wicket went down,” said Strauss. On the other
hand, Pakistan’s skipper Shahid Khan Afridi has declared this tour as the most difficult tour of his 14 year career. However, he praised his team-mates for showing resilience especially in last few matches.
Nevertheless, Strauss has asked ICC to come strong on the issue of spot-fixing in order to clean the game of this menace. He said: “The ICC have to take a firm lead, and leave no stone unturned, and they need to make sure that
every game of cricket from now on is not tarnished. That's a big challenge for them, no doubt, but it's easy to say that now the series is over, let's let this calm down and cricket will return to normal.” This series was also hampered due poor umpiring and
ironically it was English team which benefited the most from wrong decisions. However, Strauss believes that players need to show some empathy for umpires.
However, Strauss is now pleased that now the focus of media has shifted to the upcoming Ashes. Commenting on it, England’s skipper said: “I am very pleased the attention will be on the Ashes squad. Clearly as a group, we're keen
to move on from this series and very keen not to have a repeat of this at any time in the future - which is why it is very important the ICC take a very strong lead and don't take a breather now the series is finished.” Strauss believes that the concluding
series has instilled in his team the spirit of comradeship which will definitely help them in the upcoming Ashes in Australia. Strauss is hopeful of his team’s chances in Australia as they have been in superb form lately which is substantiated from the fact
that they have won all of their previous six series. On the other hand, Australia will be touring http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 before hosting their arch-rival England. Commenting on Ashes, Strauss said: “We're in a very good place; we've won six series out of six this summer - so
there's a lot of confidence. We would have gained a h**l of a lot over what has gone on in the last few weeks - bringing us closer together, and fighting our corner.”
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