ANDREW STRAUSS HAPPY WITH HIS BATTING FORM – CRICKET NEWS UPDATE

England’s Test captain, Andrew Strauss, is confident about his form leading to the first of the three-match battle against South Africa at the Oval and vows to carry on from where he left last month in the series against West Indies. The 35-year-old, who had a torrid time with the bat in 2011 and the early part of this year, regained his touch earlier in the season against the Caribbean men, striking two centuries to answer his critics in style. The left-hander has restricted himself to only the longer format of the sport since the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. Strauss has had an inconsistent run in the previous two years; however, the Poms became the top ranked Test team under his captaincy in 2011. The Middlesex batsman is happy with his recent showings but understands that a player has to start every series with a fresh frame of mind in order to be successful in international cricket, where there is not much room for error. Strauss expressed, "Obviously, I'm pretty comfortable with my form. I got those couple of hundreds against the West Indies and came back and scored a few for Middlesex last week. But it's the start of a new series - and as a batsman, you need to give the bowlers a hell of a lot of respect and work hard to score your runs." South Africa possesses one of the best bowling attacks of the world, in the presence of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander and Imran Tahir, who are all game-changers and have the ability to trouble any batting line-up of the world. The English captain completely understands that his batting unit will have to be at their very best to cope with the Proteas’ threat. Despite the controversy related to Kevin Pietersen’s retirement from the shorter formats, Strauss is hopeful that the lanky right-hander will remain a vital cog in the English batting line-up. "Anyone who scores a lot of runs in this series will certainly have deserved to score them," the left-hander added. "Whatever happens with Kevin will play out over the coming weeks and months." Tagged in: cricket, Andrew Strauss, England cricket, Cricket Update, cricket news Test your Cricket knowledge by placing free betting on cricket matches. Get most accurate Cricket betting odds and picks for successful betting.