Testing Times: In Pursuit of the Ashes

by Andrew Strauss

Testing Times  is the 2009 Ashes-winning captain’s personal account of a remarkable two-year period in world cricket. When Strauss went out for his second innings in the Napier Test of March 2008, everyone thought—including the man himself—he was one false stroke from the end of his England career. With extracts from his diary Strauss gives a unique insight into the torment which many Test cricketers go through. Taking the reader behind the scenes, Strauss describes his momentous experiences, such as Kevin Pietersen’s captaincy, the dramatic events of the Stanford Twenty20 series, the shocking terrorist attack in Mumbai, his feat of becoming the first England batsman to hit two centuries in a Test in Asia, his sudden appointment as England captain, and his team being dismissed for 51 in his first Test. Both revealing and forthright, Testing Times captures all the excitement of the 2009 Ashes triumph in which his magnificent batting and calm leadership played such a the agonizing last day at Cardiff, England’s first Ashes victory at Lord’s for 75 years, the horrors of Headingley, and finally the joy at the Oval of regaining the Ashes.

Genres: Nonfiction

342 pages, Paperback

First published September 17, 2009

About the author

Note: This Andrew Strauss was an English cricket player.

Andrew Strauss was born in 1977 and spent his early years in South Africa, Australia and England. He learned his game at Radley College and Durham University, and made his first-class debut for Middlesex in 1998 before becoming captain in 2003.

Strauss wrote his name into the record books when he became only the fourth batsman to score a century at Lord's on his Test debut, in 2004. He was awarded the MBE in 2005. In 2009 Strauss was named England captain and was subsequently named Man of the Series in the Ashes victory. He was awarded the OBE in 2011.

* Source: About the Author section for Driving Ambition - My Autobiography

Reviews

[David Wyatt-Hupton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent read with a bit of insight into the captain's mind, however the book falls into that regular issue with cricket books, far too many statistical recounts which you can easily find yourself. You want stories of players and what happens behind closed doors, rather than just retelling what we all watched.

[chucklesthescot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was always interested in reading the players diaries in the hope that it would really give you an insight into the dressing room and the players as people. What I found in this, as with a lot of other cricket diaries is that it could just as easily have been written by a fan watching the game at home. It gives the facts about the games and what was happening but without anything new. It reads more like newspaper reports of the game than an exciting diary written by the player at the time. It was a bit of a let down. Decent read but less than I was expecting.