Strauss in ecstasy after England waltz

ANDREW STRAUSS was delighted to finally enjoy the winning feeling again after England banished memories of a frustrating winter by beating West Indies by 10 wickets yesterday.

The captain struck the winning runs with a shot through the covers for four as England wrapped up victory inside three days in the first Test at Lord’s.

Despite the best efforts of Brendan Nash, who was the last man out for 81 for the tourists, England bowled out the tourists for 256, and then quickly knocked off the 32 runs they required for the win.

“It was a tough winter and we felt like we played some good cricket but struggled to get over the line,” Strauss said, reflecting on the 1-0 series loss to the same opponents in the winter.

“It was important to get over the line here. We played the type of cricket we need to play in the summer and guys stood up when we needed them to, you saw Ravi Bopara when he was limping around in the first innings and that was a fantastic knock. There are still areas to work on but I’m delighted to come away with a win.”

However with a little over two months to go until the start of the Ashes series, Strauss knows a single victory over West Indies will not be enough to convince anyone on its own.

“When you go into a match you’ve got to win it and that’s what we did well this week,” he said. “But we’ve still got a lot of hard work to do and we’re not going to get carried away.”

Strauss singled out centurion Bopara and debutant Graham Onions, who had six wickets in the match, for special praise, but visiting captain Chris Gayle believes his side had only themselves to blame after some poor fielding was followed by a batting collapse in the first innings.

“Give credit to England and Straussy, his team put on some good cricket all round, but we’ve only ourselves to blame. In that session after tea we dropped too many catches and that set us back a lot and it went from there.”

While Onions and Bopara have taken most of the headlines, Graeme Swann walked away with the man of the match honours having made 63no with the bat and taking three wickets in each innings.