Strauss unsure....

Andrew Strauss is sending out some odd signals out at the moment. Wickman Junior thinks he may be getting a little tired after having written Testing Times - a book that, incidentally, was cruelly overlooked at this year's Booker Prize awards. It's a sad indictment on the state of the nation's literary portfolio when a book about Oliver Cromwell (a bloke who's been dead for over 350 years) can pip some of the best cricketing, and can i suggest more relevant, publishing we are seeing at the moment from Gilchrist and the like. Go figure. I defy anyone who's ever read "Out of my comfort zone" from Steve Waugh, to say that it shouldn't be a part of every English syllabus in classrooms across the country. But I digress....

Speaking about the next stage in England's journey, Strauss said this...

"We have a busy summer of cricket before the Ashes in Australia so there's a lot of cricket ahead," he told BBC Radio Five's Sportsweek programme.

"The key is to make sure the players are fresh but at the same time you don't want to be tinkering with the side too much.

"The Bangladesh tour is quite a useful one in our development in terms of playing on sub-continental wickets...I'm not going to say I am definitely on it at this stage and I'm not going to say I'm definitely not on it, we'll just need to see where we are as a side."

"I can't guarantee anything, I don't know what will happen in the next few months. We only select one tour at a time. The South Africa tour is a massive one and then we've got Bangladesh in February and March. When we select that we'll sit down and see where we are as a side with injuries, niggles and all that stuff. We'll sit down and decide the best course of action."

Take his first point about it being a "busy summer of cricket, so there will lots of cricket ahead". Thank you for pointing this out Andrew. Wickman Junior can't imagine how this talk would go down in the dressing room. Perhaps there are players in the team who thought it would be a fairly quiet summer of cricket? Also - if it is going to be a busy summer of cricket, were some expecting to play tennis instead?! Of course there is going to be a lot of cricket ahead Andrew - i'd expect that in a "busy" summer of cricket.

Then this: "I can't guarantee anything. I don't know what will happen in the next few months". What?! Aren't England touring South Africa soon - that will surely take care of the next few months. Wickman Junior has even read a fixtures list to confirm this. Has Andrew not been told? Maybe this hasn't been "guaranteed" as Andrew puts it, and he's asked players to rock up to Heathrow to see if they can get on a flight to South Africa, in the hope of getting a game. But looking at his next comment: "The South Africa tour is a massive one and then we've got Bangladesh in February and March. We only select one tour at a time", would seem to suggest he does know what will happen in the next few months, and that England have selected more than one tour at a time. It's totally baffling. And, you know, talk like this from the England skipper only fosters uncertainty. That can't be a good thing.

Wickman Junior