ENGLAND captain Andrew Strauss insisted there would be no danger of his side relaxing now they had climbed to the top of the Test table and rid English cricket of its “laughing-stock” status.
England attained their long-term goal of being declared the world’s number one Test and simultaneously clinched an unbeatable 3-0 lead in their four-match series against former ICC table-toppers India with a crushing innings and 242-run success in the third Test at Edgbaston last week.
They could be forgiven for easing up, as even the great Australia sides of the 1990s and 2000s sometimes did when a series was already won, in the fourth and final Test at The Oval, starting in London on Thursday (August 18).
But Strauss, speaking to reporters at The Oval on Wednesday (August 17), said he was confident England would avoid succumbing to ‘dead-rubber syndrome’.
“There’s always that danger of taking our foot off the gas, but I hope and expect that we won’t fall into that trap,” he told reporters.
Strauss cited the way England had won the fifth and final Test against Australia in Sydney by an innings in January, a victory achieved with the Ashes already retained after the tourists had gone 2-1 up in Melbourne, as an example of England’s ruthlessness.
“I think we had a similar situation in Australia and reacted really well in Sydney,” opening batsman Strauss explained.
“That’s certainly what we’re trying to do this week. I’m absolutely certain that India will want to finish the tour on a high note and we have to stop them doing that,” Strauss said.“Now is not a time to be satisfied with ourselves.
“There’s so many challenges ahead for us as a side. There’s the subcontinent this winter, there’s South Africa coming over and then India in the winter after that followed by the World Test Championship.”
If England beat India at The Oval they will have won as many Test matches – 20 – in the past two years as they did during the whole of the 1980s.
