Strauss backs himself for battle against spin

Andrew Strauss, the England opener, expects to challenge his own comfort zones and refine his techniques while playing India in the upcoming series.

"Test cricket is about challenging yourself and there are not many bigger challenges than facing spin in India. So I have been working hard for the past couple of months before coming here and I will continue doing so in the next couple of weeks," Strauss said in a press conference in Mumbai. "It will be a great challenge for all of us [England team]. The conditions in England are very different to here and we don't face spin bowlers on real turners and that's why India is such a tough place to tour."

Stressing the importance of getting acclimatised quickly to the Indian conditions, Strauss said the English team are enjoying the process. "It is very different than England in February. So I spent a long time out there at the nets gaining an appreciation of what it is going to be like batting a day or two or spending a day in the field," he said. "The guys enjoyed it actually. Early on in a tour you are keen to sample the conditions as much as possible and adapt your game to the Indian conditions as early as possible."

Strauss revealed that the past two months were spent working on technical aspects of his game and stressed the importance of working hard in India prior to the Tests to get his gameplan right. "There were a couple of technical things that I needed to work on after the Pakistan series. You can't do much of spin bowling work indoors in England so it was more working on improving my shots, really, and a few technical points on spin .The real work has got to be done in the next couple of weeks and adapting to conditions and working out which shots work the best over here."

Asked about the importance of the two warm-up games, considering that England did not start off well in the Pakistan tour, he said, "Getting into a momentum helps you. If you get off to a good start, feeling in good nick and feeling comfortable at the wicket, the chances are that you may go on and get runs in the Test matches. It's not the be-all and the end-all and certainly the guys would be trying to experiment with their game plans in the practice matches that they may not be trying in the Tests. I think it's important to get the game running over here."

Strauss expressed satisfaction at the practice pitches and conditions given to the England team and added that replicating Test-like conditions would be the key. "Yesterday it was a bit like Headingley in April, but today it was good. There is probably a bit more bounce than what you expect over here but we created a rough and there was more spin at this afternoon," he said.

"That would be the key, to come up with game plans to deal with the ball turning prodigiously during the Test matches. There is always pressure when you play Test cricket. There is pressure for me to score runs so that the team does well. If you don't react well to that pressure then you won't be in the team for long. I have got extra motivation to do well after a couple of poor Tests in Pakistan. That excites me and I will try to go out there and contribute my bit towards a successful tour."

Strauss has yet to face Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble in Test matches but revealed his preparation to tackle the duo. "From video footage we know how they look to take their wickets." he said. "So when we are in the nets we may be thinking about what sort of options we want to use against them. But again you are not going to know 100% until you get out there in the middle for the first Test."

Strauss believes that using the sweep shot as a tactic to spin is an "individual thing" and that it was upto each batsman to devise a way to play. "Someone like Andrew Flintoff doesn't need to sweep, he is a great driver of the ball, and others have to play in other ways," he said. "The key to playing spin is having options to getting off the strike and maneuvering the field and you have to use the sweep to do that. As long as you practice that shot and are comfortable with that shot then it should not be high risk a shot to play."

Strauss also stated that England are aware of the threat posed by India's left-arm seamers. "We have tailored our preparations towards that. A lot of our work before coming out here is to get the ball coming in from different angles from left-armers and we are aware of the different challenges that we will encounter here and are excited about it."

Duncan Fletcher, England's coach, had earlier talked about the importance of a big first-innings score in subcontinent conditions while citing the lack of it as one of the main reasons for England's debacle in Pakistan. Asked whether Fletcher's statement had put added pressure on him, Strauss maintained that this was not the case and added that the onus would be on the top -order batsmen. "In cricket it's important to score most of your runs in the first innings because then you can dominate the game from there on," he said. "Over here it's probably more important as the wickets tend to break up during the course of a game. The top-order batsmen take the responsibility to score runs early on. That's what we are paid to do and that's what we have done fairly consistently over the last 24 months. Obviously it didn't work quite so well in Pakistan and we have a lesson to learn."

England begin their tour with a three-day warm-up match against a Board President's XI in Mumbai on February 18 before travelling to Baroda for a similar clash. The first Test begins at Nagpur on March 1.