It doesn't add up for Strauss

Sorry to have another dig at accountants (see comments on this post) but the bean-counters cropped up in conversation recently when I interviewed Andrew Strauss, who was taking part in a coaching session with ill children at Great Ormond Street Hospital School for Chance to shine.

Afterwards, we were chatting about general matters and conversation turned to Alex Loudon giving up cricket for a career in the City. Strauss said that "every morning I am grateful that cricket saved me from becoming an accountant".

This interview four years ago, back in the days when he was called Andy, records how close he came to becoming a numbers monkey in a pinstripe suit. Strauss said that if he hadn't been chosen for England's one-day tour of Bangladesh in 2003, he would have spent the winter doing work experience for Cricinfo and in the City. Strauss has A levels in maths and further maths and his father was an insurance broker; it would have been so easy for him to leave the game to work in finance, but fortunately he turned out to have that little bit of extra talent that was not there to save Loudon.

Comments

[Stuart George]

If things get difficult, perhaps Strauss could become a journalist? Some ex-cricketers write better than others, of course, but I do find the modern trend of broadsheets recruiting only ex-Test cricketers as their correspondents slightly depressing...It seems that a First Class hundred will help you become a cricket writer more than any journalistic abilities.