Yet another new dawn of English cricket is upon us this morning with Andrew Strauss being named the replacement captain after Kevin Pietersen resigned his post yesterday afternoon. With Peter Moores also not surviving the fallout of the India trip, England now begin a search for a strong man to stand next to Strauss in what is going to be a hard road forward now over the coming months for English cricket. I think Andrew Strauss is a very sensible option as captain, as he is now a very experienced and seasoned campaigner and I am sure he will be able to calm the tensions that will naturally be around when England board the plane for the West Indies.
What is now imperative is that the management and the players can quickly focus what is ahead of them and not what is behind. Let's hope Kevin Pietersen can take easily to be one of the rank and file again and can push on to be the world's best batsmen, a position that is well within his compass with the talent and skill that he has at his disposal. If these things happen then I see no reason come July that England will not be in a good position to have a mighty crack at regaining the Ashes. It has been a horrendous two or three days for English cricket, let's hope we can move on quickly.
On the other side of the world, Australia won the third and final Test against South Africa in Sydney. In an unbelievably tense finale with four overs of the Test match remaining, Australia claimed the ninth South African wicket with Graeme Smith suffering from a dislocated elbow and broken hand, the Aussies started celebrating a famous win, but incredibly they looked around and saw the sight of the South African captain padded up and coming out to do battle for his country. Smith couldn't see out the remaining overs and when Mitchell Johnson bowled him the Aussies were able to celebrate again. It has been an incredibly close Test Series with both teams having chances to win the first two Test matches, I for one can't wait for the return Series in South Africa in a month or two's time; Test cricket is alive and kicking!!
