Applause for Strauss as he bows out

The curious thing about sporting resignations is always the body language.  Now, Andrew Strauss has never been one for grandiloquence.  His tenure was marked by a quiet and effective tenacity that delivered back to back Ashes victories, then propelled England for the very first time to the top of the global test rankings.

And he carried with him the respect and patience of the press corps.  No easy task, given not just their snout for a story, but because so many cricket hacks once wielded a bat or ball themselves.  That said, his deportment was so demure, indeed almost apologetic, it was sometimes hard to marry the captain he soon became – with the man thrust into the job in the first place.

“He’ll only ever make a one day captain” – I recall the grumbles when Strauss was named as the replacement for the previous England skipper.  How he proved them wrong – evidenced by something pretty rare in sporting circles.  As he upped and left his valedictory press conference this afternoon, he was clapped away by the same journalists who’d watched him glide apparently effortlessly from cricketing boy to man, and now into retirement.

And Strauss – well he smiled, thanked everyone graciously, even paused for a moment in gratitude, then was gone.

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