Strauss wants England to copy Aussies and discover killer instinct

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10 April 2012

England's success in the Ashes was characterised by an utterly merciless approach to their task and though the opposition and the conditions will be different this summer, that cold efficiency must remain.

There was so much to cherish about England's work in the winter but Andrew Strauss is right to try to leave it in the past. As a member of the 2005 Ashes-winning side, Strauss knows well the danger of believing that the summit has been reached.

Sri Lanka will prove dangerous opponents in the three-match npower Test series, which began in Cardiff today, but India represent the most important challenge of the summer. As the world's top-ranked Test side, the recently-crowned world champions occupy the place England covet. How England perform against Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team will show how realistic their ambitions are.

Sri Lanka and India lie in wait, then, yet it is to Australia that England must look for an example. The great Aussie sides of the late 1990s and mid-2000s were not content simply to win Test series by the odd match. Those teams swept aside the opposition with such self-assurance that they twice won a world-record 16 consecutive Tests, the first sequence coming between October 1999 and February 2001 and the second between December 2005 and January 2008.

To put that record in perspective, England's best run of Test victories is the eight straight wins they managed in 2004, when New Zealand, West Indies and South Africa were all despatched.

As successful as the regime of Strauss and Andy Flower has been, the pair have not managed to eradicate the lapses in performance that prevent the whitewash. In 2009, the Ashes were regained but thanks only to the final Test victory at The Oval, which followed a thrashing by an innings and 80 runs at Headingley.

Last summer, England were demonstrably superior to Pakistan and had conditions in their favour but could not stop the tourists from stealing one Test, again at The Oval. It was a similar story in the winter, when Strauss's team claimed three Tests but were crushed by 267 runs in the third match in Perth.

It may seem harsh to make such criticisms when perfection is essentially impossible to achieve, yet the great Australia teams did not suffer these occasional blackouts that haul England back.

If they could avoid them this summer, it would signify greater maturity and concentration, and Strauss acknowledged his team still had a good distance to travel. "We are some way off being the best team in the world," said the captain. "It might take us a long time to get there and certainly if we drift into the summer and don't hit top gear straightaway, it could seem like a long way off. There is a lot of motivation now for us to take the next step.

"The best teams have benefited from winning consistently. A lot of things go in to winning consistently, one of which is a solid group.

"The other thing is to have some very good senior players who set the right example in the endless pursuit of improvement.

"We achieved an important goal by winning in Australia but our goals have now turned towards this summer and beyond.

"There are improvements we can make on the pitch and off it and we have been looking at that during the last few days. We are not going to beat every team we play by an innings and sometimes it is going to be very hard work for us but if our environment is 100 per cent right then, hopefully, we will achieve the consistency needed."

The depth of talent in English cricket is encouraging. The pace bowlers who missed out on this squad, Ajmal Shahzad, Graham Onions and Jade Dernbach among them, all had reasonable claims, while Eoin Morgan's inclusion as the sixth batsman would have left Ravi Bopara, James Hildreth and James Taylor disappointed.

It will be interesting to see if a young spinner can stake his claim this summer to succeed Graeme Swann eventually but that is an argument for another day.

Depleted as Sri Lanka are - the great spinner Muttiah Muralitharan has retired and pace bowler Lasith Malinga ruled himself out of the tour because of a knee condition - they remain shrewd, capable cricketers and possess three outstanding batsmen: Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and the captain Tillakaratne Dilshan.

They are also ranked fourth on the Test ladder, one rung below England, and Strauss's description of their "street-smart" qualities proves they are respected within the England dressing room.

A different form of the game it may be but Sri Lanka's 10-wicket breeze against England in the World Cup quarter-final in March is still an uncomfortably fresh memory.

Yet an inexperienced bowling attack and unfamiliar conditions should count strongly against the tourists and anything other than a convincing England victory in this series would be an underachievement.

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