LONDON (Web Desk) - There is spiced lamb, beef rump and sparkling rosé on the 'endless lunch' menu as Andrew Strauss sits down in the hospitality tent at the exclusive Hurlingham Club in west London. But, he admits, after a damaging blow to his self-esteem, he is feeling "pretty sour".
Strauss is playing padel - a squash/tennis hybrid - alongside a professional player but has just been beaten 6-4 in the semi-finals of the pro-celebrity challenge at the inaugural Alfred Dunhill Padel Classic. As, indeed, in the other half of the draw, has another man whose competitive spirit is unlikely to be doused by retirement: James Anderson.
For Strauss, this was an opportunity to catch up with Anderson after he confirmed that he will retire from international cricket after England's first Test of the summer: "It was just to congratulate him and have a chat about what his plans are moving forward. Rightly, he's going to take stock and he wants to get through this game well, and finish on a real high.
"I really hope he gets the send-off he deserves at Lord's. People have been talking about this moment for years - in a way, we got lured into thinking it was never going to come. It's been an extraordinary career with extraordinary resilience and will to keep going. Playing sport at the highest level is not an easy thing, and bowling's even harder. He's one of the great bowlers of all time."
Anderson was an integral part of the England team that Strauss led to No. 1 in the ICC's rankings: he was the leading wicket-taker in the 2010-11 Ashes, their most recent win in Australia, and took 21 in four Tests against India the following summer. "He was just utterly dependable," Strauss recalls.
"He was one of those bowlers that you knew what you were going to get, every time. He had a great competitive fire and instinct, and extraordinary skill. Any captain would love to have him in their team. The other thing is that he kept fit: he never - or at least, very rarely - got injured. It's quite depressing to think that he made his England debut before I did. I've been retired for 12 years now!"
Yet Strauss believes that Rob Key - the man he first sounded out to become managing director of England men's cricket over two years ago - has made the right call, in conjunction with Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes. "In those positions, you've always got to be matching the present with the future. And, rightly or wrongly, we tend to judge our Test team on how we do in Ashes series.
"We've only got a certain number of fixtures [18, including Anderson's farewell against West Indies] between now and the next Ashes, and even Jimmy himself would admit that next Ashes is looking like a stretch. It's the right time to get some games into some new players and obviously a huge hole to fill. If you think about [Stuart] Broad going last summer and now Anderson, it's very hard to replace them overnight.
"They were both utterly dependable and were senior bowlers, so you need to invest time and effort, and other people need to step up and take those leadership roles. So I think it is the right time. Often, you don't fully appreciate what you've lost until it's gone - but there has to be life after James Anderson."
When Strauss was appointed to what is now Key's role in 2015, he drove England's decision to move on from Anderson and Broad in white-ball cricket. "They were both very good performers, but they added most value in Test cricket and you're always thinking with bowlers, how do you make sure that you're not flogging them to death? I'd like to think that has elongated both their careers."
But when he returned to the job on an interim basis in early 2022, in the wake of a 4-0 Ashes defeat in Australia, his call to leave Anderson and Broad at home while England toured the Caribbean blindsided both players. "It's always that balance between focusing on what's good about a team and thinking about improving areas to be competitive down the line," Strauss reflects.
"Coming in in an interim capacity, you talk to people about what was wrong with that set-up. No-one ever had any doubts that Broad and Anderson would come back and play at home; playing away from home, they've definitely shown that there was a lot more life in them. You've got to give them both huge credit for that.
"But the principle is the same as it is now: England had been particularly poor away from home, so the focus was always on trying to find bowlers that could perform in overseas conditions. The skills required away from home are slightly different to the skills you need at home - fast bowlers, reverse-swing bowlers, good spinners, all the stuff that our game doesn't naturally produce - so we need to get game-time into people who've got potential."
England used six seamers in that series, of whom only Mark Wood is a certain starter - fitness permitting - when they next play overseas, in Pakistan this winter. Chris Woakes led the attack but has not played away from home since, while Craig Overton, Matt Fisher and Saqib Mahmood have battled injuries and Ollie Robinson's career is at a crossroads.
There is a wide cast of potential successors which also includes Gus Atkinson, Josh Tongue, Matt Potts, Olly Stone and Sam Cook. But Key has admitted that he and the rest of England's selection panel will have to take "punts'' as to who has the attributes required to perform at international level: he does not believe that the County Championship in its current guise closely replicates Test cricket.
The Professional Cricketers' Association is pushing for a revamped schedule following a player survey which revealed frustration and concern about the volume of cricket. For Strauss, whose recommendations were rejected by the counties after he led an extensive "high-performance review" into English cricket, it is a story which feels all too familiar.
"It's just pointless to have that conversation," he says. "There was an opportunity last year and the game chose not to take it. No-one is going to touch it with a bargepole anytime soon. You reap what you sow. It is the counties' choice as to what they do, but I do hope that they listen to their players going forward. Sometimes, I feel like there's more focus on the members than the players."
Strauss' principle recommendations were to cut the number of Championship fixtures each county plays from 14 to 10; to play 50-over cricket at the start of the English summer; and to play four-day friendlies alongside the Hundred in August. Key suggested recently that it was a mistake to frame the review solely around 'high performance' but Strauss disagrees.
"We'd just lost an Ashes series, and all the conversation was: how do we make sure that we have a structure that produces genuine high performance? That was the remit. When you're looking through that lens, you have to say, how closely does domestic cricket match the needs that are required in international cricket?
"The answer is, it doesn't - especially when you're playing most of your games in April, May and September. None of those issues have been resolved." Strauss is happy that other recommendations - such as the Kookaburra ball trial - have been implemented, but predicts: "This conversation is just going to go on and on. Everything is a trade-off."
A common criticism of Strauss' review was that it barely mentioned the Hundred and its mid-summer window. "But that wasn't part of our remit," he insists. "Personally, I feel like we have to invest in the Hundred, and make it the second-biggest short-form tournament in the world. That's the way the game is going. I actually think the Hundred is a solution to a lot of the problems in the game."
But these are no longer Strauss' problems. These days, he can devote as much time to padel as cricket, through his role as executive chair of TTB Sport Capital, a marketing, investment and advisory group which is running the Hurlingham Club event to raise funds for the charity Laureus Sport for Good.
His only active involvement in cricket is as a member of Rajasthan Royals' advisory board and he is enjoying the opportunity to be "on the outside" of English cricket after a lifetime involved in the game. "There's a perspective you gain from being outside the bubble," he says.
"When you're in it, everything feels so important. You feel like the whole world has a strong opinion on everything you do. But then you realise that, actually, it's only a small little bubble and that the world goes on. I'm still passionately supporting England whenever they play - but having that perspective is good."