Testing Times: In Pursuit of the Ashes

Testing Times?is the 2009 Ashes-winning captain’s personal account of a remarkable 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 his diary Strauss gives a unique insight into the torment which many Test cricketers go through. 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 role: the agonizing last day at Cardiff, England’s first Ashes victory at Lord’s for 75 years, the horrors of Headingley, and finally the joy at the Oval of regaining the Ashes.

Andrew Strauss was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in March 1977. He learned his game at Radley College and Durham University, and became captain of Middlesex in 2003. On May 21, 2004, playing against New Zealand, Andrew Strauss wrote his name into the record books when he became only the fourth batsman to score a century at Lord’s on his Test debut.