Testing Times: In Pursuit Of The Ashes

Testing Times is the 2009 Ashes-winning captain`s personal account of a remarkable and tumultuous two-year period in world cricket.

When Strauss went out for his second innings in the Napier Test of March 2008, everyone thought-including the man himself-he was one false stroke from the end of his England career. With extracts from the end of his diary, Strauss gives a unique insight into the torment that many Test cricketers go through. But, at the last ditch, he scored 177 and re-established himself as England`s first-choice opening batsman.

Taking the reader behind the scenes, Strauss describes his momentous experiences, such as Kevin Pietersen`s captaincy, the dramatic events of the Stanford Twenty20 series, the shocking terrorist attack in Mumbai, his feat of becoming the first England batsman to hit two centuries in a Test in Asia, his sudden appointment as England captain, and his team being dismissed for 51 in his first Test.

Both revealing and forthright, Testing Times captures all the excitement of the 2009 Ashes triumph in which his magnificent batting and calm leadership played such a vital role: the agonising last day at Cardiff, England`s first Ashes victory at Lord`s for 75 years, the horrors of Headingley, which began with a 5 a.m. fire alarm, and finally, at The Oval, the joy of regaining the Ashes.

Andrew Strauss was born in 1977 and spent his early years in South Africa, Australia and England. He learned his game at Radley College and Durham University, and made his first-class debut for Middlesex in 1998 before becoming captain in 2003.

Strauss wrote his name into the record books when he became only the second England batsman to score a century at Lord`s on his Test debut, in 2004. He was awarded an MBE in 2005. In 2009 Strauss was named England captain and was subsequently named Man of the Series in the Ashes victory. Andrew Strauss is married with two children.