Vote for Strauss
James Lawton, writing in the Independent , makes a case for Andrew Strauss to be voted the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
James Lawton, writing in the Independent, makes a case for Andrew Strauss to be voted the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year. He points out the turmoil in which Strauss inherited the England captaincy and the turnaround he wrought by regaining the Ashes.
Ryan Giggs is considered an infinitely stronger contender than Strauss at 5-2 and there is no question that he is a candidate of great merit, his evergreen, biting performances reminding us of all the quality that he has brought to a career which has seen him outstrip in character and consistency all of his Old Trafford contemporaries except the equally phenomenal Paul Scholes, the best English midfielder of his generation.
Yet Strauss's position in the odds table remains both an oddity and a scandal. Above anything else, it suggests a profound failure in the sports public to muster even the rudiments of proper analysis; a sweeping assessment perhaps but then what other conclusion survives even the barest examination of quite what Strauss achieved in the wake of the embarrassing denouement of Kevin Pietersen's ill-starred captaincy.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo