One of the most irritating complaints heard from some Australians this summer has been about Andrew Strauss’s ethnicity. “Aw, mate, he’s just a Saffer like Pietersen,” they say, ignoring the fact that you could not find a more stereotypical plummy-voiced product of the British public school system than Radley-educated Strauss.

Sure, he was born in Jo’burg, but his mother is English and he has lived here since he was 6. Strauss is so English that he sips Earl Grey with pinky extended while watching his team bat from the Lord’s pavilion. He is so typically Pom that his upper lip starts to quiver whenever he hears Elgar. He enjoys queuing (heck, he told my colleague John Westerby today that he was thinking up strategies for Edgbaston in the queue at Legoland). He has English teeth.

Strauss is as English as Andrew Symonds, that Birmingham-born, heavy-drinking, wild pig-wrestling, zinc warpaint-wearer, is Australian.

He was, however, born outside England. I will concede that. In fact, we have had England captains hail from nine countries other than England, including Peru (Freddie Brown), Italy (Ted Dexter) and Trinidad (Pelham Warner). We’re just a multicultural nation with tentacles Read more…

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