Excellent. Just as I was looking for a story that might distract everyone from Ashes debacle along comes a juicy one. I thought today’s article might have to be about England’s unchanged squad for the 5th test – a depressingly predictable move by Ed Smith. However, the news that Boycott and Strauss have been knighted offers endless opportunity for debate. It might raise people’s blood pressure too. And that’s the perfect recipe to forget all about Steve FFS Smith.
Before I delve into the rights and wrong of these honours – which were pretty much the last vestiges of cricket-mad Theresa May’s mad premiership – I’ll briefly describe my reaction to this news when I was happily munching my cornflakes this morning. Hint: never have a mouth full of orange juice when you hear that Olly Robbins has been knighted. You’ll completely soak the person sitting opposite you.
First let’s address Sir Geoffrey – who really is a ‘sir’ now. My immediate thought was “some people aren’t going to like this”. Although I enjoy Boycott’s commentary because he isn’t afraid to put the boot in when necessary, he’s a bit of a marmite figure at TMS. What’s, more he’s not exactly known for his political correctness.
We all know about his conviction for assaulting his girlfriend in France (something he’s always vociferously denied) but there were also his controversial remarks about his failure to secure a knighthood a couple of years ago. He joked that he’d be more likely to receive the honour if he ‘blacked up’ – a reference to the number of West Indian cricketers who have been knighted. Such comments might go down well in certain quarters but they’re also likely to offend large swathes of the population.
However, today I’d like to focus more on Andrew Strauss than Boycott. Why? Because although many see the decision to knight Boycott as the controversial one, I actually think Strauss’s knighthood is more contentious if we focus exclusively on cricket. After all, both men have officially received knighthoods for ‘services to sport‘ according to the official government website; therefore we have to assume that Sir Andrew’s brilliant recent charity work didn’t come into the equation. It’s worth reminding people at this point that Ian Botham was officially knighted for ‘services to sport and charity’.
If we leave aside all other matters then there’s no doubt whatsoever that Boycott deserves this honour. He scored just over 8,000 test runs at an average of 47 (a brilliant average for his era) in 108 tests. Strauss, on the other hand, scored just over 7000 runs in 100 tests at an average of 41 (which was unremarkable for his era). We have to assume, therefore, that Strauss was also knighted for his captaincy record and his subsequent shortish stint as an ECB administrator.
Leaving aside Strauss’s recent personal tragedy and his superb work for the Ruth Strauss foundation, which raised over three hundred thousand pounds at Lord’s this summer, it’s my contention that Andrew Strauss the cricketer sadly does not deserve this knighthood. It’s awkward to say this as I have enormous respect for the man, and I have incredible sympathy him and his family over the tragic loss of his wife, but this article is all about achievements in sport.
First lets look at Strauss the batsman. In my opinion (which is supported by the stats), Strauss was the seventh best England opening batsman of the last 30 years. The following players all had better records: Marcus Trescothick (44), Graham Gooch (43), Alastair Cook (45), Michael Vaughan (averaged 45 as an opener), Alec Stewart (45 as an opener), and Mike Atherton (38).
The only somewhat contentious one here is Athers. However, there’s no doubt in my mind that Atherton was a better player than Strauss. It’s just that his career stats are skewed slightly by (a) the chronic back injury that made him a sitting duck in the last year or so of his career, and (b) the fact he had to face Donald, Pollock, Wasim, Waqar, Ambrose, Walsh etc for the majority of his entire career. Strauss just about missed these guys.
However, as mentioned above, the Strauss story is possibly more about his captaincy than his batting. It’s a powerful narrative too. “He took an ailing test side, grabbed them by the scruff of the neck, led them to number 1 in the world, and a coveted Ashes series down under”. You could make a movie about that. Oh they did? Sorry I’m yet to see The Edge.
The problem with narratives like this one, however, is that eventually it becomes more about myth or legend than fact. Indeed, if one looks closely at Strauss’s record at captain you’ll see that it’s good but hardly brilliant. For starters he inherited a bloody good team containing the likes of Cook, Pietersen, Bell, Collingwood, Flintoff, Prior, Harmison, Broad, Anderson, Panesar and then (later) Trott. Compare that to the guys Gooch and Atherton had to work with. Compare them to the guys Joe Root has to work with now.
What’s more, Strauss’s teams really didn’t achieve anything out of the ordinary – with the exception of that Ashes win down under of course. Here are the series results with Sir Andrew at the helm (I’ve left out Bangladesh tests as he skipped the away tour and they’re easy meat overseas).
West Indies (away) LOST 0-1
West Indies (home) WON 2-0
Australia (home) WON 2-1
South Africa (away) DREW 1-1
Pakistan (home) WON 3-1
Australia (away) WON 3-1
Sri Lanka (home) WON 1-0
India (home) WON 4-0
Pakistan (away) LOST 0-3
Sri Lanka (away) DREW 1-1
South Africa (home) LOST 0-2
As you can see above Strauss mostly won series England are usually expected to win. We normally beat the likes of the West Indies, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and India at home. And we haven’t lost at home against Australia since 2001 … though we should probably watch this space! England basically had a good run for a couple of years but it wasn’t anything extraordinary. For example, England’s run of 6 series victories in a row between 2003-05 was just as impressive, especially as we’d been rubbish for most of the preceding decade.
Meanwhile, Strauss oversaw three terrible series results during his time as captain. The West Indies away (in which we were bowled out for 50 in the first test), a whitewash in the UAE, and a horrible 0-2 reverse in his last series against the Saffers. We also suffered some horrific ODI defeats while Strauss was in charge, including losing to Ireland in the 2011 World Cup.
Then we come to Strauss’s glorious Ashes win in 2010/11. I don’t want to take anything away from him (or his team) as we were marvellous all tour and I enjoyed it immensely. This was Strauss’s machine at its best: disciplined and efficient. His partnership with Andy Flower was blossoming and captain, coach, and team were clearly on the same page.
However, neither should we forget that this was possibly the weakest Australia team in living memory. Mitchell Johnson was bowling to the left and the right leaving Siddle and Hilfenhaus to lead the attack, Ryan Harris was half-fit or injured all series, and the spin department boasted Xavier Doherty and then Michael Beer. This was the only Ashes series (of seven in total) in which Cook actually scored some runs.
The Aussies’ batting wasn’t much better either. Simon Katich and Shane Watson opened up, Ricky Ponting was past his best, and they were so short of options that journeyman Marcus North occupied the No.6 position. A longish tail by modern standards then followed. One could argue that Mike Gatting’s success down under in 1986/87 was just as much (if not more) of a triumph.
Personally I’ll always remember Strauss as a good leader, a really safe pair of hands, but a very conservative captain. Whereas Michael Vaughan (more about him later) was tactically astute and a great motivator, Strauss’s MO was essentially passive. The method he embraced alongside Flower was to bowl dry and wait for the batsmen to make mistakes. It didn’t make great viewing. And it rarely worked against the very best batsmen either.
What’s more, we mustn’t forget how quickly Strauss’s team disintegrated. We reached No.1 in the world very briefly – it was almost a quirk of the rankings system – and then the whole thing collapsed instantly like the proverbial house of cards. We were woeful in the UAE immediately after reaching the summit, scraped a draw in Sri Lanka thanks to a famous Pietersen hundred, and then got embarrassed at home by the Saffers in which they racked up 637-2 at The Oval. Strauss then resigned.
Although I will always be grateful for that magical 2010-11 Ashes tour, it’s also worth mentioning that Strauss’s England didn’t actually win a series in Asia, which is the other benchmark for successful England teams. It was only when Strauss stood down, and Alastair Cook took over, that we finally won in the subcontinent.
I’m not trying to argue that Strauss was a poor captain here. Far from it. He was a very decent one. I wish he was still playing so that he could take the reins from Joe Root. As I said at the beginning of this piece I have tremendous respect for Sir Andrew. It’s just the ‘Sir’ bit that somewhat bothers me. After all, when you’re dishing out knighthoods you absolutely must judge players and captains by the very highest standards, otherwise you could make a case for any number of cricketers to receive the same honour.
Let’s take Michael Vaughan, for example. Vaughan was both a better batsman and a better captain than Strauss. He didn’t win a series down under as skipper (he never got the chance) but he did win player of the series in 2002-03 after scoring a remarkable 633 runs at an average of 63 against one of the best bowling attacks of all time. It was the best individual batting performance I’ve seen from an England player.
What’s more, Vaughan was the architect of England’s amazing 2005 Ashes win (our first in nine attempts) in which we beat an absolutely brilliant Australia team full of all time greats in perhaps the greatest test series of all time. Vaughan was also in charge when England won those aforementioned six series in a row between 2003-05 which included our first win in South Africa for decades.
I’m not trying to argue that Vaughan should be knighted too by the way. I just think it’s inconsistent for one to be knighted and not the other. In my opinion neither of them should be knighted. Why? Because the only other English cricketer knighted in my lifetime (before Cook) was Sir Ian Botham. And he was knighted predominantly for his charity work. I don’t understand why we’re now knighting cricketers willy nilly. It devalues the honour and seems unfair on those who went before and arguably achieved more.
The final reason why I do not believe that Strauss should be knighted is his mixed record as an administrator. Once again I can understand the compelling narrative “he took one of the worst ODI teams in the world and made them world champions”, but I think we all know it’s a bit more complicated than that – especially as we’ve just failed to regain the Ashes as a direct consequence of some of the decisions Strauss made in office.
Yes Strauss deserves credit for appointing Trevor Bayliss which helped us to win the world cup. I supported this decision at the time as I believed he was right to ignore the public clamour for Jason Gillespie. However, we can’t ignore that Bayliss has also been a poor coach of England’s test team, which has clearly gone backwards in recent years. We can’t ignore the bad and only focus on the good.
What’s more, Strauss was at best complicit, and at worse instrumental, in the gradual marginalisation of the county championship in recent years. England failed in the Ashes (amongst other disasters like being bowled out in a single session four times in recent series) precisely because of the ECB’s white ball focus. Yes Strauss helped us win the World Cup. But he must also take a large proportion of blame for our worst test batting line-up in recent memory. The first class cupboard is bare and Strauss’s fingerprints are all over the handles.
I should reiterate that I have nothing against Strauss personally. He’s a man of integrity and intelligence. He’ll always have his place in English cricketing folklore. But knighting him isn’t the best look in my opinion. Some will see the decision to knight Alastair Cook, who was famously praised for belonging to “the right sort of family” by former ECB chairman Giles Clarke, and now Andrew Strauss, who’s obviously from similar establishment stock, as an indication of class bias in the honours system.
Or maybe Theresa May simply doesn’t know cricket as well as she thinks she does.
James Morgan
Strauss was the captain that introduced us to the concept of not enforcing the follow on so, yes, way to conservative. In reality, we know the knighthood is down to his charity work for the Ruth Strauss Foundation – it’s just an error on the part of whoever had to write ten words describing what the knighthood was for.
As for Sir Geoffrey, he doesn’t deserve the knighthood in my view. Some spokesperson for battered wives has said that woman beaters shouldn’t get knighthoods. Sir Geoffrey’s response was that he doesn’t give a toss what the spokesperson thinks. If instead he’d said “I agree 100% but I’m innocent of all these charges” I might think differently. And there were the blacking up comments, of course.
to—> to
Before anybody says anything
On Athers, you missed out McGrath. Athers has the dubious distinction of 2 of the top 3 entries in the all time “bunny” list. To Ambrose and McGrath. Might as well be a bunny to good bowlers, I suppose.
On Strauss, I tend to agree with you and Dangermash that his knighthood should be for services to sport and charity.
Knighthoods have so devalued in the modern era that really don’t mean as much as they once did.
Knighting people especially sportsmen or women when they have yet to retire ad happened with Bradley Wiggins is completely ridiculous.
Winston Churchill was only offered a knighthood after he’d galvanised the nation to stand up to Fascism.
Puts things into perspective a bit.
I agree with you.
What about the ODI team – they did not get a mention at all!
Not with you. I mentioned the World Cup win?
You can’t leave aside his charity work. The honours sytem is a sucker for this. However, once you’ve knighted Cookie, Strauss has to be close behind, having become part of the cricketing establishment and in no small way being responsible for us winning the World Cup this summer. No ones going to get knighted for winning an Ashes series but the World Cup at home is an altogether more high profile public event.
One of the main reasons Botham deserved his knighthood were his well publicised walks for Lukemia, especially his John O Groats to Lands End marathon, which was followed every day if you remember by the team on Natuonwide, then the country’s premiere news and current affairs magazine. Sign of the times it has now been superseded by the celebrity gossip of The One Show.
It would be interesting to plot a county map of this country with the relative numbers of knighthoods awarded to citizens of each county over the last century to see if there’s a north south divide, as generally the closer you are to the hub in London the more of an establishment figure you are likely to be.
Hi Marc, I tried to make the terms of the debate clear at the beginning. Strauss was officially knighted for ‘services to sport’ (see the link) whereas Botham was knighted for ‘services to sport and charity’; therefore I’ve made the assumption (which seems reasonable) that Strauss’s recent charity work didn’t come into the decision.
If we’re just judging this on cricket alone then Strauss was the 7th best opener we’ve had in recent times (maybe he sneaks into the top 15-20 batsmen broadly speaking) and he was the second best captain we’ve had in recent times. This is nowhere near enough to earn a knighthood.
Although I disagreed with the decision to knight Cook too (especially as northern lad Jimmy Anderson is yet to be knighted) I think there’s a far more compelling argument for Cook. He is, after all, England’s leading run scorer of all time. Yes there should be a caveat next to this statistic in my opinion, but it’s a fact. Strauss’s greatest achievement was winning down under. In which case why don’t we knight Mike Gatting while we’re at it?! :-)
As I said, you don’t get a knighthood for winning an Ashes series, but I stick to my guns that Strauss’s charity work still played a part as a kind of character witness for the defence, even if it wasn’t mentioned in dispatches, if you’ll excuse the mixed matphors.
He’s clearly been the prime mover and shaker behind rebuilding the one day outfit from a rather hapless bunch to the best in the world and World Cup winners, all in the space of 4 years. I’m not comparing it with Sir Alf’s achievement in ’66 but it’s the nearest cricketing equivalent. Look at Or Clive Woodward after the Rugby World Cup win, so there are precedents there. I guess that means if we win the same this autumns Sir Eddie Jones is the next on the list.
I agree Strauss on field achievements don’t warrant it on their own but ‘services to sport’ indicates more than one area of influence. He’s also become a well respected establishment figure and that’s certainly not going to work against him. As with so much of the Honours system there’s often hidden agendas working behind the scenes, especially amongst sponsors recommending candidates to the committee.
Not impressed with your summary though. When England beat India, India was the best team in the world – not Australia. Despite the lauding of the 2010-11 Ashes the challenge of beating India was the route to who was top team. Strauss at his best tempered the worst of the coach Flower. I remember Strauss saying Flower was like a stone and he was not! Unfortunately the team began to unravel when Flower appointed himself Director of Cricket. Something you’ll not find in The Edge. Strauss wasn’t able to stand up to Flower or prevent the taunting of KP in the dressing room. So Strauss set the scene for the later debacle. His own later appointment as Director of Cricket allowed him to carry on a bitter agenda of revenge for his humiliation by KP. it was his decision to ban KP for life. Personally this taints his record for me. He also punished Bell because he was truthful about KP’s worth to the England side. But he is part of that establishment that rewards company men. At least you can’t put Boycott’s knighthood in that category! Strauss went on to do the ECB’s bidding in an era of the marginalisation of Test cricket and County cricket. That’s his legacy. So I agree with James.
I think your absolutely right – and you didn’t even mention the fact that he went to Radley !
I agree with almost all of the article, which really goes to show that the honours system is a tattered old joke, and should be abolished
Thought it was typical that Harriet Harmon came on bemoaning the fact that the decision to award Boycott a knighthood was in danger of bringing the honours system into disrepute, as if that hasnt happened already. This was over a single incident that happened over 20 years ago. I know Boycott is no diplomat, as his brusque dismissal of women’s groups objections to him proved, but if you’re going to single out individual incidents of dubious behaviour how many of the previous recipients would be acceptable. Boycott has always protested his innocence and although that maybe open to question none of the protesting groups actually know what happened. As we all know ‘assumption is the mother of all f*** ups’.
Good read, thanks! From the bowling list for the Aussies, during the 2010-11 ashes, you forgot the illustrious Dougie (the rug) Bollinger😂!
I fear your brain may explode if you start looking for consistency or justice in the UK ‘Honours’ system!
I could say a lot, but three words suffice: Sir Jimmy Savile…
Wow. Good point! I’m beginning to think the system should be abolished now.
The problem with public opinion over this is that how many of us would refuse an honours system award if offered. I don’t think there’d be too many, whatever their political persuasions. If you speak put against something so English you’re deemed to be unpatriotic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_declined_a_British_honour
The refused knighthoods are especially interesting. I’d be quite happy to stand alongside the likes of Alan Bennett, David Bowie, Danny Boyle, Francis Crick, Stephen Hawking, LS Lowry, Harold Pinter, GB Shaw and AJP Taylor (interesting quote with which I largely agree).
And if you think many of the above can be characterised as a bunch of anti-establishment rebels, even Rudyard Kipling and T.E. Lawrence turned down knighthoods.
I think the honours system stinks and nothing will ever change my mind about that. James hasn’t even mentioned the two most egregious of May’s honours. And I don’t equate belief in something so anachronistic, partisan and subjective with patriotism.
Agree with most of this – in particular your core claim that in pure cricketing terms Strauss has done less to earn his knighthood than Boycott (although for other reasons I regard the Boycott decision as the bigger mistake). My own opinion if our honours system is that it is deeply antiquated and irretrievably damaged by some of the decisions about who to honour. I have already mentally chalked up Ashes 2019 as 3-1 to Australia, given the disappointing but unsurprising decision to name an unchanged England squad (and they would deserve that margin of victory, their batting, if only by virtue of Smith and Labuschagne, having been functional most of the time, unlike that of England). Feel free to check out my posts on http://aspi.blog.
Thanks Thomas.
I’m less bothered about Strauss than Geoffrey Boycott. While ultimately God will be the judge about whether he beat his girlfriend, his racist remarks were disgusting.
In a world where applauding racism is not something that the country needs right now, we’ve basically gone and done it.
That’s a perfectly understandable opinion, Alex. Please understand that I don’t get into politics on the blog. The place would erupt and get nasty. Seen it all before. What I can do, however, is debate cricket and put forward what I hope is an interesting thesis for people to debate.
On that basis, why, in your opinion, has Graham Gooch not been knighted? Until Cook surpassed him, he was England’s leadng Test run-scorer and captained his country during a time when he was surrounded by numpties. Don’t tell me they still hold the South African thing against him? Strauss was bloody well born there!
Maybe Gooch wasn’t knighted because he’s just an Essex lad. Just like Jimmy Anderson is just a northern lad from Burnley? Ahem.
If they held the rebel tour(s) against Gooch, why not against Boycott?
This.
I assume that the knighthoods are given to insiders, of whom Strauss is a consummate example. His ECB role plays more strongly here than his playing career. I always supposed that Gooch was paying for his support for apartheid (effective, if not expressed), as the rest of his career seems tailor made for higher honours – captaincy, long service, no boat-rocking, ejecting undesirables, coaching and behind the scenes roles after retirement. Now that Gooch’s fellow ‘rebel’ tourist Boycott has become Sir Geoffrey, Graham must be wondering what else he needs to do.
My only clue is a memory of Theresa May saying in an interview that Boycott was her favourite player, and that this must be a very personal decision. Like cricket’s equivalent of the famous Lavender List (one for the oldies!)
I’m amazed at how long it took some-one to bring up the rebel tours.
I am pleased for Geoff Boycott and watching him this morning on GMTV, it was quite sad as he was talking about his parents and uncle who probably would have been the most proud for him. Not seeing their son growing up from the disadvantaged back ground he had, to become a Sir. That really was a bitter sweet moment for him.
As for his response regarding the assault conviction. That is where he really needed some media training!. I remember at the time of the trial thinking things didn’t seem quite right. But he should have been a bit more contrite to those who suffer from domestic violence.
I really shouldn’t get into this but people often point me in the direction of this article re: Boycott’s conviction https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/honours-list/11922112/Geoffrey-Boycott-must-be-knighted-after-new-evidence-points-to-his-innocence-over-domestic-abuse-case.html
Featured in the Telegraph – the paper in which Boycott has a column.
Guilty or not, time served or not, his remarks in response to Women’s Aid were not too clever. Has he taken media training from Jonathan Agnew?!
They have this really weird obsession with knighting posh cricketers at the moment
It’s about time that Sir Geoffrey was knighted, confirming the title he’s unofficially held for years. Gee whizz, how we could do with a batsman with half as much talent as him right now.
Strauss – a decent guy first and foremost, unlike that sheet anchor rent-a-gob Vaughan.
Yep the Honour system is flawed – and like the Monarchy should be poured down the nearest sewer.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Strauss, like Boycott, doesn’t give a toss about the criticism.
Not worried. A knighthood is pretty meaningless in this day and age. I can’t see why playing cricket should entitle anybody to be a Sir though – it’s just a game!
To be honest we see gongs given out to people for just doing their day job each time the honours lists are published every year. There’s politicians and their advisors, captains of industry, civil servants, sports stars and even members of the royal family. To be fair the list is substantial and the further down the list you look the more you see mr & mrs average who have been an incredible servant to their community or to a cause they have dedicated the life to. Unfortunately these worthy recipients aren’t near the top and hardly get a mention. Except locally to them and there’ll be as proud as punch and honoured to get it.
I don’t agree at all with top sportsmen being knighted. Ok he’s raised a lot for charity. A lot of rich people do it largely to publicise their careers. But so have countless other selfless volunteers all over the country who often largely go unoticed. A successful sports team helps people’s moral and gives us all a lift from time to time, but you can’t compare highly paid often privileged sports people with those working at the grass roots of society, underprivileged children, disadvantaged disabled people, the homeless, the starving in 3rd world countries, the list goes on.
But this is cricket site, what are Mays qualifications for this anyway? A non entity of a PM. No not for me.
On the whole Im against professional sportsmen getting national awards. They have already been well paid for what they do so awards should be for those involved in chartiable, unpaid work. I also think CEOs, civil servants and politicians are well paid as it is and dont deserve them.
The first and last word on knighthoods to cricketers should go to Bill Woodfull whose view was
“Had I been awarded it for being an educationalist, then I would have accepted it. But under no circumstances would I accept it for playing cricket.”
The strange thing is why you should chose to write such a curmudgeonly article about a fine man who fully deserves his honour.You say his charity work and personal circumstances – which he has born with such fortitude – did not come into the equation. I’m sure they did and you are being way too literal in interpreting the citation. You just come across as bitter and twisted, I’m afraid, Mr Morgan.
I just dug out a letter to the Times I had published in 2010:
January 07, 2010
Sir, The criticisms of the New Year Honours system (letters, Jan 5) are all valid, but nothing new. The system has long been no more than a mixture of tokenism, a substitute for paying civil servants a competitive wage and a means for the incumbent government to signify it is in touch with popular sentiment.
The decision to award all of the men’s cricket team MBEs in 2005 is a good example of the last, rather than simply bias against women. Geraint Jones received an MBE for his services as wicketkeeper in the 2005 Ashes. By contrast, both Alan Knott and Bob Taylor, whom one might respectfully suggest had rather more distinguished careers as English wicketkeepers, never received an honour between them. Paul Collingwood’s award was on the basis of a single appearance in the fifth Test, in which he contributed an important 10 in the second innings; Graham Thorpe did not receive an MBE until he had played 100 tests and Mark Butcher, who played 71 tests, has never received a thing.
Perhaps it is better to recognise that the system, like that of MPs’ expenses, is fundamentally flawed rather than simply flawed in execution, and do away with it accordingly.
Let’s not forget who’s really at fault here… the ECB, of course!
No I’m not keen on knighthoods. Cricket should have its own special awards. Don’t know what though. Maybe Cricket Master?
You’re clearly right about Strauss.
Whatever you think of honours, it should be clear that an appalling PM shouldn’t have had the right to grant them. She has brought our country into more disrepute than Smith and Warner did for Oz.
I expect she was just trying to give the impression she has any life at all outside her pathetic authoritarian political posturing.
The real question is why MCC made her a member, depriving a real cricket fan of their place in the queue. And why she, being such a paragon of virtue, felt it ok to accept was is clearly a gift of considerable value. Perhaps the next thing I’ll do is check that she declared it in the appropriate way – MCC membership makes you a part owner of the ground, which is worth, on a per head basis, around £150,000.
You must be the life and soul of a party. Maybe it should have been renamed to services to sport and charity but
-As captain he took us to number 1 in the world, what would you give for that now, he also beat the aussies at their place
-He was a fantastic opener, we would bite your hand off to have him in the side now
-He had a significant role in helping us win the world cup
-His charity work
You are right in that none of these on their own justify a knighthood but add them up and you have a man who has done a huge amount for English cricket as a player, captain and administrator as well as everything he has contributed charity wise.
This is a bit petty it really is. Sometimes it’s nice to think positively instead of trying to find the ‘but what about’ in everything. Life is too short to find a fault in everything. When you see Joe Denly trundle out to bat, there is every reason to celebrate the players who really and truly helped to achieve something.
Maybe Trevor Bayless and Eoin Morgan should have got (honorary) knighthoods. In Rugby Union and Football, a World Cup winning manager/coach gets the knighthood.
When an honours lists is released there are a couple of fun ones – such as Sir Patrick Stewart, and then a selection of politicians, businessmen etc which are less fun!
Perhaps this particular honours list which is effectively at the personal perogative of a retiring PM should be placed in context to that of the normal NY and Queen’s Birthday lists.
Can’t we just knight anyone who shakes a tin thus avoiding all ambiguity?
Knight people if you must that deserve it, not privileged people because they do their jobs.
The Boycott honour was all about whipping up a fake media ruckus so there was no coverage of the genuinely dubious honours and the cronies and donors May gace honours to despite saying sucj actions made her sick when Cameron did it. See Ehud Sheleg for a prime example.
As for the issues raised by Strauss, charitable foundations are a scam. They don’t pay tax and they don’t have to publish audited accounts. If you want to contribute to charity, pick a small local one and avoid foundations and the large charities.
Why does Strauss get aKnighthood when Michael Vaughan has not. Vaughan was the better more successful captain with a better average
Very good summary – covers the bases. I think that giving knighthoods to footy players and cricketers is almost always silly … unless they truly were absolute giants, which neither of these two are. Regards from Hexham Northumberland