England's captain had a fallow year with the bat in 2011 but his side need him to find his form quickly
When the top six batsmen suffered such a collective malfunction in England's first-Test flop against Pakistan that they could muster only 143 runs for a total of 12 dismissals ? Graeme Swann scoring as many, 39, in the second innings as Alastair Cook, Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell managed between them in the match ? it seems a little harsh to focus on the problems of only two. But the coach Andy Flower did not duck from the concerns over Strauss and Pietersen when he reflected on the "bit of a shock" England had received in their first match as the top dogs of Test cricket, although he remains confident that both can lead the uphill struggle the team are facing if they are to avoid a first series defeat for almost three years.
For Strauss a confusing and possibly harsh second-innings dismissal after inconclusive video review, caught behind off an innocuous leg-side delivery from Umar Gul, was further evidence of cricket's sadistic habit of sticking the boot in.
He began 2012 having been carried by his colleagues in terms of runs alone through their triumphant 2011, and it is a reflection on his qualities as a leader that nothing more than a background murmur had previously surfaced about his form.
Yet the statistics make startlingly grim reading. He has gone 17 Test innings without a century and passed 50 only once in his past 12, although his comparatively lean spell stretches back further still ? that last hundred, in the second innings against Australia in Brisbane in November 2010, was the only time he has passed three figures in 42 innings since the 2009 Ashes. Over that period Strauss has scored 1,365 runs at an average of 33 and if two of his 11 half-centuries, at home to Bangladesh, are discounted, the tally falls to 1,200 at less than 30.
That is a run almost as bad as the stretch of 30 innings without a century he endured between August 2006 and March 2008, when he was dropped for a tour of Sri Lanka before putting his Test career back on track ? and arguably saving it ? with 177 in the second innings against New Zealand in Napier, having been dismissed for a duck first time around.
That led to a revival and within a year the captaincy, a response to which Flower was presumably referring when asked directly about Strauss's form. "He's a very good player, he's performed in all conditions against world-class bowlers and I expect him to do so in the future. I expect him to have a good tour."
He expressed sympathy with Strauss for the manner of his second-innings dismissal, which he believes may reflect a new implementation of the Decision Review System to reduce the number of occasions on which the on-field umpire's initial decision is overruled.
"It's one of those instances where the technology didn't come up with the right decision," said Flower, who sought an explanation from the match referee, Javagal Srinath, during the lunch interval.
"I think that protocol needs to be looked at. You certainly shouldn't lose a review [as England did when the decision was upheld] because it wasn't proven one way or the other whether he hit it or missed it."
But there was no doubt over Strauss's first-innings failure and here he may find some rare common ground with Pietersen, as his own ugly attempt to pull the last ball of Saeed Ajmal's first over of the match was surely as crass a misjudgment as Pietersen's gormless hook to deep square leg when England had already slumped to 25 for two in their battle to save the game.
"If you look at the dismissals, some of them certainly didn't indicate being too patient," said Flower in response to a suggestion that the root of England's problems was their slow scoring rate at the start of the match, when Pietersen managed two singles from 28 balls before he fell leg before to Saeed. "I think in any innings you've got to balance risk and reward, and attack and defence, and that depends on how people are bowling at you and the conditions."
He agreed that Pietersen's hook looked "horrible" but added: "We've all made bad decisions. I wouldn't want to castigate him for it. He's a good cricketer and he's got two more Tests to contribute to English victories."
Pietersen's double failure in Dubai comes after 471 runs in his past five Test innings in England last summer, so there is no hint of a Strauss-style slump. But whereas Strauss managed a half-century in each of England's warm-up games and looked in decent touch, Pietersen scored only 57 from four innings and was dismissed three times by spin.
A captain as thorough and resourceful as Misbah-ul-Haq was always going to try to exploit Pietersen's peculiar problem with slow left arm, and although Abdur Rehman did not dismiss him, having been introduced immediately Pietersen came to the crease, he tied him down so effectively in the first innings that it could conceivably have provoked the hapless hook at Gul in the second.
Now Flower, the batting coach, Graham Gooch, and the rest of England's support staff have three net sessions ? one in Dubai on what would have been the last day of the Teston Saturday, the players having been given Friday off to lick their wounds, and two in Abu Dhabi after relocating to the second Test venue following the arrival of the wives and families over the weekend ? to prepare Strauss and Pietersen, a pair who would normally seem to be a classic contrast of low and high maintenance, for another trial by Pakistani guile.
"The clearer you are about your strengths and how you want to employ those strengths, the better you are," said Flower, confirming that he would be taking a hands-on role with both. "That's part of my job."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jan/20/andrew-strauss-england-cricket
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