Strauss ready for limited opportunity

Right, that's enough Test cricket. Next Friday, England embark on the first part of the one-day section of their winter tours. The difference will be obvious immediately.

Not that it will be possible to tell from much of the batting, since most Bangladesh players try to knock the leather off every ball, whatever the form of the game. The essential distinction will be in the stands.

The wide-open spaces of Dhaka and Chittagong - which would have been greater had it not been for the usual presence of an army of loyal, long-suffering England supporters - will be much fuller, if not filled. In Bangladesh as everywhere else in world cricket, save old England, it is the one-dayers that lure the punters.

England will play three games against Bangladesh, followed immediately by three more against Sri Lanka. They are likely to win one series and lose the other. No prizes for guessing which is which.

The country's one-day fortunes took an upturn during the summer after the third consecutive dismal World Cup. A refashioned side from whom we were constantly told not to expect too much won two tournaments thrill-ingly and decisively. Sometimes, it was hard to believe it was England out there.

Only one uncapped player has been included in the squad of 15. Andrew Strauss, the Middlesex captain and left-handed opener, has earned selection for consistency. No one-season wonder he. Over four home summers his batting craft has developed considerably.

He may also find himself in the team rather than carrying the drinks. Marcus Trescothick's thumb injury could easily leave a vacancy for a left- handed opener - and there is a case for giving the natural replacement experience to provide cover for the future.

From his early days in the Middlesex side, Strauss's method won the enthusiastic approval of Mark Ramprakash, still the keenest practitioner in England of batting proprieties. At any point in the last 18 months, Strauss might have been picked, possibly ahead of the likes of Robert Key or Ed Smith.

The time had arrived when the selectors could ignore him no longer, but it was a mild surprise that Strauss was named in the one-day party. He shared the sensation. Most of his soundest form has come in the longer game, and when Strauss talked of his progress he mentioned that he had scored a total of some 4,000 runs in the past three seasons. They were 4,000 first-class runs, though, not one-day runs.

"I felt I performed more successfully in four-day cricket," he said. "At the same time I think there is possibly an element of having a look at a younger player in the one-day squad to tell if he will be able to transfer to Test cricket. It's also very important to find out how people react in certain circumstances, what their character is. I'm sure both Michael Vaughan and Duncan Fletcher as captain and coach will be looking to see how I fit in."

Strauss will meet the necessary requirements of personality. He is a rounded man of 26 who is aware that a dressing room contains folk of different temperamental hues, all of whom must be catered for. He has a degree in economics and a sense of humour.

For two successive years in the Cricketers' Who's Who he wrote in the relaxations column: "Any new economic theory books, especially on how chaos theory can influence accepted non-linear market forecasting models." His cricket bag for this tour, while bursting with techno-stuff from the team sponsors, Vodafone, looked distinctly short of economic tomes.

Strauss, like Ed Smith before him last summer, is the type of international cricketer who has been on the verge of extinction: public school followed by university. Strauss was born in Johannesburg, but he was still an infant when his father's job brought him to England. He was educated at Radley and then at Durham. Many of his contemporaries are earning top-dollar salaries in the City, but he is happy to report that they envy him his occupation.

"I stopped searching for a magic formula to score runs," he said. "I have knuckled down, got to know my own game. When I first came on the county scene I saw all these great players and perhaps tried to absorb too much from them. You can over-analyse."

England should deal comfortably with Bangladesh, who have not won for 44 matches. That should become 47. Later in the winter, England will play seven one-day matches against West Indies in 18 days. Next summer they will play at least six games in the NatWest Series, three more in the NatWest Challenge, followed by at least a further two in the ICC Champions' Trophy, which is being staged in England throughout September 2004.

Thus, in the next 11 months, Michael Vaughan's side will play at least 24 one-dayers, 27 if they are successful. The challenge for followers and players alike will be to remember them a week later.