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Cricket

Strauss admits pressure is off after century against Kiwis

03/04/2008

England batsman Andrew Strauss has said his century in the final Test against New Zealand last month takes the pressure off him this summer.

The domestic cricket season begins next week with the traditional curtain-raiser between an MCC Select XI and the county champions, Surrey.

And the national side have two Test series' lined up against the Black Caps, in May and June; and South Africa, in July and August; as well as five-match one-day international series against both countries.

Strauss was dropped from the England squad due to a drastic loss of form last year.

However, ahead of the tour of New Zealand this year, the Middlesex man played first-class domestic cricket down under ahead of the rest of the squad arriving, which helped boost his confidence and he was duly reinstated.

Strauss failed to win over his doubters with some patchy displays in his first five innings, scoring 97 runs in total including dismissals for a duck, two and eight.

But he came good in the second innings of the decisive third Test, helping himself to a superb 177 - his first Test century since August 2006 - as England won by 121 runs to clinch the series 2-1 overall.

"The hundred was well overdue and not getting one for a while had become a bit of a millstone round my neck," Strauss admitted.

"It was an important knock and takes a bit of pressure off me.

"I don't think I coped with the pressure last summer. I was very worried by the end of it about what might happen if I didn't get runs, but then you get pretty negative about things.

"There was obviously a lot of speculation about what might happen, but it doesn't help as a player to think in those terms."