What memories do you have of that fairytale debut?
It was the dream come true, the best way to start a Test career, by getting a hundred at Lord’s. It’s been strange building up to this match and trying to reconnect with what went on that week. It’s still pretty inspiring to think about what went on. It obviously counts for nothing now but it’s nice to have those memories jogged a little bit. 

Your success led to a reshuffle in England’s batting didn’t it?
It was a strange set of events as it was only because of an injury to Michael Vaughan that I got into the team. Nasser then leaving and a younger player coming into the team probably changed the dynamic a bit and maybe made players take responsibility more for their own performances rather than rely on the old campaigners. It helped the team in the long run. It was amazing to start my Test career with eight straight wins – you don’t get much better than that. It is great to think back on those times.

You became a senior player very quickly. Did it feel that way to you?
I don’t know. I suppose I felt like I was a decent cog in the machinery and an important one and that’s a pretty good feeling to establish yourself and prove that you can play at that level. It did happen quickly and one of the reasons of our success in that 2005 series is that we had 11 players in the side who felt similarly about themselves. Times have moved on since then but we are now quite a way down the process again with the side we’ve got and that’s pretty exciting.

You went from skipper in 2006 when Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff were both injured to being dropped in 2007. Did it feel strange in the wilderness?
It was quite dispiriting not to be involved having been involved for so long but looking back I certainly needed some time away to think through where things had gone wrong and to work on. I needed to regain that hunger and desire and I feel I have done that now, I feel really excited about this summer and I’m as excited about this summer as I have ever been since I played for England. So in terms of my mindset I’m really in a good place at the moment and I’m hoping to be a cog again in a winning England team. There are enough reasons to think why that might happen.

Was being dropped the wake-up call you needed?
I don’t think I needed a wake-up call because I wasn’t not trying or taking anything for granted. We had a really tough winter in 2006-07 and the Ashes series was very tiring and we went straight into an English summer, I wasn’t scoring runs and I needed a break, I needed to refresh and come back reinvigorated and ready to go. It was great to get a 100 in New Zealand and prove to everyone that I wasn’t finished as a Test match force and I’m hoping to have a big summer and prove that my best years are still ahead of me.

Did being dropped teach you not to look too far ahead?
From my point of view I’m just loving playing Test match cricket for England. It’s a great honour to be part of and maybe when you are playing all the time you forget that and it becomes normal or something you expect but when you take a timeout you realise ‘God, we’re lucky to be doing what we’re doing’. If you don’t enjoy Test cricket a) you are not going to play as well and b) you would be absolutely mad because it’s such a great honour to have bestowed on you.                  

Looking ahead to the summer of 2008 are you upbeat?
Yes, as we are seeing New Zealand are a competitive team with match-winners and a lot of youngsters and they are always full of enthusiasm. We knew we couldn’t take anything for granted against them and it would be wrong of us to think like that. It would be even more wrong to start thinking about South Africa at this stage. If we can build up some momentum, that’s going to stand us in good stead for the rest of the series and beyond.

Andrew Strauss was speaking exclusively to Richard Sydenham

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