STRAUSS PREPARED TO SILENCE SCEPTICS AGAIN

Andrew Strauss has made a habit of silencing the doubters in his increasingly substantial international career.

Andrew Strauss has made a habit of silencing the doubters in his increasingly substantial international career. Long before he became England captain on a permanent basis, there was a clamour in March 2008 for the end of Strauss' tenure at the top of the order in Test cricket. Many, it seems, had overlooked the fierce determination which lies beneath a polite, almost unassuming demeanour. They had therefore, not for the first time, underestimated Strauss - and done him a significant disservice. He responded with a second-innings 177 in Napier. It remains a career-best, and helped England to a 121-run series-clinching victory. Within a year, Strauss would be Test and one-day international captain for a burgeoning era of conspicuous success. Yet still there were those who felt England could perhaps do better - specifically for the 2011 World Cup, set to get under way in the sub-continent next month. They were influential voices too, with reasoned arguments. This time a panel of experts chaired by former England captain Michael Atherton nominated a first-choice XI which did not contain Strauss for the World Cup. The rationale was that Strauss' batting feeds off pace and width, and his cross-bat off-side carves and ferocious pulling will be of limited lasting use on the slow surfaces and softening balls of Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. Short of transporting himself in time and place, by six months and 6,000 miles or so, there was little Strauss could do in terms of another immediate response. His man-of-the-match 126 in a four-wicket ODI victory over Pakistan at Headingley last September was nonetheless not a bad riposte, delivered within around a couple of hours. If he had just given another demonstration of his determined nature, his post-match remarks were further evidence that he will never be easily distracted from his task - or riled into either superfluous or damaging words. "All I can do is do my talking with the bat and help England win cricket matches," he said. "People can talk as much as they like. It's pretty irrelevant to me. "I'm very happy with my game at the moment, and even more happy we're continuing to win." Series victory at home to Pakistan was memorably followed by England's first Ashes success in Australia in almost a quarter-of-a-century. Even so, the captain was contending with more noises off, as England began to struggle in their ongoing one-day international series Down Under. After the world champions had surged into a 3-0 lead, another former England captain - this time Michael Vaughan - was prescribing a short, last-minute break for Strauss. "England should look to the World Cup now," Vaughan tweeted. "Rest Strauss and make sure he is fresh for the sub-continent. Captaincy a little harder than playing. He has played non-stop since May. Only (Jonathan) Trott has done the same." Strauss was rested for last year's Test and ODI tour of Bangladesh, with the gruelling schedule Vaughan alludes to in mind. It would have been an unfathomable response to minor adversity, though, had he decided to abandon his team in Australia - however briefly - at a time of need and when World Cup preparations still had to be fine-tuned, in defeat or victory. Unsurprisingly, he was having none of it. Presented with exhaustion as a convenient excuse for him and a team depleted by injury, he said: "It's an easy conclusion to jump to. "But both sets of players have played exactly the same amount of cricket. If fatigue is setting in then that is not good enough." The uncompromising stance was pure Strauss. It will be equally typical of his resourceful nature if he also finds a way to adapt his skills to the demands of limited-overs batting in the sub-continent. Down-the-ground power-hitting has already made some belated and occasional cameo appearances in his repertoire - and although that is never going to be Strauss' preferred method, England can count on him continuing to get the best out of himself as a batsman, just as he does out of his team as captain.