Strauss' 'sliding door' moment
Sport is full of turning points that could have led to a parallel universe, as the England captain demonstrated in the first Ashes Test in Brisbane observes Mike Selvey in the Guardian
Akhila Ranganna
25-Feb-2013
Sport is full of turning points that could have led to a parallel universe, as the England captain demonstrated in the first Ashes Test in Brisbane observes Mike Selvey in the Guardian. It is the Sliding Doors principle of a parallel alternative to events hinging on the outcome of a small, apparently insignificant factor. Andrew Strauss' dismissal in the first Ashes Test in Brisbane could well have been one such moment.
"Getting out like that was hard for me," he told me. "Harmison's was a bad ball to start the series but he ended up bowling OK in that match. We just played badly and were badly beaten. But people still look back at that ball which I don't think had a bearing on the outcome. So when I got out, I thought: 'OK this is fine, this is not a precursor to what is coming any more than Harmison's ball was.' Deep down, though, I was fighting against it, and thinking: 'I know what they are going to write.' Test cricket can always ask some pretty serious questions of you and I realised that I was going to have to dig pretty deep in the second innings."
Akhila Ranganna is assistant editor (Audio) at ESPNcricinfo