The case for Strauss

A gritty 60 today on a slow turner against Sri Lanka's canny but limited attack should be enough to allay some of the recent media and supporter pressure for Andrew Strauss to make way. But is it fair that he was under this pressure to begin with?

Firstly leave aside the captaincy - a separate case can be made for carrying a great captain who is out of form or not up to making the starting XI in his own right; we don't need to go there with Strauss.

I can remember a few years ago, in the period just before Strauss was given his first taste of captaincy in the summer of 2006, remarking to a friend that the problem with Strauss was that he was clearly not one of England's best two opening batsmen. At that time, Michael Vaughan was slotting into the side at three or four in order to accommodate him, Alastair Cook was beginning to hint at his prodigious future and Marcus Trescothick hadn't yet given up the ghost of international cricket. At that time, I would still say I was right.

But Strauss was probably the most consistent and temperamentally strong of these players at that time, and has, barring the last tour of Sri Lanka, when we tried Vaughan and Cook and he played state cricket in New Zealand, made the position his own since. He is closing in on 20 Test centuries and 7000 runs, which puts him in the very top bracket of England's test batsmen. Captaincy brought him back for two years into England's ODI side and he transformed himself into arguably our most consistent ODI batsman in the period between the summer of 2009 and the 2011 World Cup.

Strauss hasn't scored really heavily in a series since the 2009 Ashes, when he was the leading runscorer on either side. He did have a pretty strong 2010-11 Ashes series but hasn't scored a hundred since and his career average has been gently sliding towards 40 over the last three seasons. Nevertheless he has not been abysmal - he has scored important runs on occasion but got out when set, previously something which didn't trouble him. This winter he has been below-par, averaging about 30, but in the context of the rest of England's batting order that has been steady. Only Trott has done better. He is under more pressure than Pietersen and Bell, who have done far worse, because:

a) he is 35;

b) he has had a prolonged period of mediocrity when the others had great triumphs as recently as last summer; and

c) as a Test specialist he is judged solely on Test innings so he lacks the opportunities the others have in the other formats.

Strauss deserves to stay. This is mainly because he is one of the two best openers in my book. If he was injured, Trott would move up to open and if he retires this is probably what England will do in the short term. Doing this has risks. England have become quite dependant on Trott's solidity at three - even when Strauss has not been scoring heavily he has been spending time at the crease and keeping out the new ball. The second big reason for keeping Strauss is that, once England's winter of failure against spinners on helpful (but by no means dustbowl) surfaces is over we will be facing the West Indies, against whom he would surely back himself to thrive, and the South Africans, who boast Steyn, Morkel, Philander and De Lange. Negotiating the new ball will be a totally different challenge to that presented by the three sub-continental teams and it will be in helpful conditions. This is when we will really see Strauss's worth, or be in a position to judge whether he still has it in him.

The lack of strong candidates to come into the team and open is worrying. James Taylor may be used to open at his new county, Notts, in the same way that Alex Hales has in recent years. But although Taylor looks to have a technique capable of doing this he is still essentially a middle order batsman. Yorkshire's Joe Root might be another option, and the slightly journeyman Hampshire pair of Michael Carberry and Jimmy Adams could both be stop-gaps. Warwickshire's Varun Chopra, who used to open for Essex with Cook, is the other obvious choice and seems to be fulfilling some of the promise of his U19 days.

There is a host of middle order talent: Tom Maynard, now of Surrey, looks class, Jonny Bairstow and Joss Buttler have both been bred in the pyrotechnic world of T20 but have the capacity to bat in the longer forms of the game. Rory Hamilton-Brown, again of Surrey, looks a natural leader should Cook fail to inspire.

But no-one to challenge Strauss this season. You can have a separate debate about whether England would be better off if he stayed in the team but gave up the captaincy but I don't detect any desire from the team or its management for this.