Strauss on captaincy

The Daily Telegraph is running extracts from Andrew Strauss's new autobiography Testing time. In today's extract, Strauss talks about the pressures of being England captain, and details how he got to be at the helm of the England side early this year after the tussle between Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores.

... my biggest priority was to find out how the players viewed what had gone on between Moores and Pietersen. The newspapers had made out there was a big division between the players, with some supporting the coach, some the captain. My impression, however, was that they did not want to be involved in this personality clash; and that the most extreme positions were taken up by Moores and Pietersen, while the players were somewhere in the middle. The first thing I did was ring up every player to find out how he felt, did he feel let down, what were we doing right as a side and what badly. And a general theme quickly became apparent: the players wanted to move on and get England back to winning.