Andrew Strauss calls for unity of counties and country

Tom Collomosse13 April 2012

England skipper Andrew Strauss has warned cricket chiefs they must forge a stronger relationship with the county sides to give the national team a better chance of success.

ECB bosses are believed to be furious at the prospect of new Australian sensation Phillip Hughes effectively having a six-week warm-up for the Ashes while playing for Middlesex.

The 20-year-old opening batsman, who scored a century in each innings against South Africa in March in only his second Test match, expects his brief stint at Lord's to put him in far better shape to take on England, as it will give him valuable experience of pitch and weather conditions in this country.

Hughes is due to make his Middlesex debut against Glamorgan tomorrow, and his new county team-mate Strauss said: "If the England team are doing well that benefits the counties and we need to make sure we all working together and not going in different directions.

"There are times, understandably, when counties look after what they need to look after — they want to do well and keep their members happy. There is a bigger picture there as well. That is the challenge for the ECB and counties.

"Phil Hughes playing county cricket is not going to win or lose us the Ashes. It is just a symptom of the relationship between the ECB and the counties, which needs to be stronger."

Meanwhile, Andrew Flintoff got the better of Kevin Pietersen in the latest round of Indian Premier League matches. Flintoff hit 22 not out as the Chennai Super Kings overcame Pietersen's Bangalore Royal Challengers by 92 runs. Pietersen fell to a first-ball duck.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in