A fire alarm, and some football
Andrew Strauss relives the victorious Ashes series in his autobiography Testing Time
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Andrew Strauss relives the victorious Ashes series in his autobiography Testing Time. In this extract published in the Daily Telegraph, Strauss talks about being woken up at 4.45am by the fire alarm on the day of the Headingley Test, the problems of playing football as part of training and missing Flintoff.
There has been a lot of talk about why we play football, but most cricket teams around the world play a game that gets their legs moving and switches the players on, and football has always been the most popular. After a couple of injuries we implemented a no-tackling rule, and we will obviously have to look at the subject again if there are further injuries. In any event Matt Prior’s back went into spasm as he went down the wing in our game. About 15 minutes before the toss was due to be made England’s wicketkeeper was barely able to move.
Nishi Narayanan is a staff writer at ESPNcricinfo