Cautious Strauss Revels in His Role As Best Man As Pietersen Enjoys His Honeymoon Period

Kevin Pietersen's honeymoon has, in the best tradition, been short and sweet. When Graeme Smith pointed out that this Test would be the new captain's easiest challenge for the foreseeable future, he was doing more than honing his mind games and stealing in advance any thunder. He was voicing an unsettling truth.

Two Tests in December await in India - where England have not won a series for 24 years - followed by four in the Caribbean against the quietly improving West Indians. Next summer come two Tests against Sri Lanka, who in Ajantha Mendis possess a spinner capable of out bowling Muttiah Muralitharan. And then the Australians mosey into town. The danger by the end of it all is that Pietersen will regard dead rubbers like this with a certain fondness, so there should be satisfaction all round that it was Andrew Strauss, the most experienced of the specialist batsmen, who helped break the back of England's run chase.

With an eye on the top job himself, Strauss may have offered only equivocal support to Pietersen's nomination. But in a team at times accused of lacking independent thinkers his common-sense advice in the months ahead could be crucial as Pietersen attempts to grow into the job. And by making his first half-century of a difficult series and his first in eight innings stretching back to the 106 he hit against New Zealand at Old Trafford, Strauss has repressed the whispers surrounding his position at the top of the order.

This was not a commanding innings. At times it was a fortunate one, especially when Strauss was caught at leg gully off a Morne Morkel no-ball when he had just four. But no one would begrudge him the moment: it was partly bad luck that chipped away at his confidence during the 2006-7 Ashes, since when his career has staggered between the bar and the door of last-chance saloon.

Another failure yesterday and the goodwill built up by hitting 177 against a Shane Bond-less New Zealand at Napier and that hundred in Manchester may have disappeared altogether. For a while it was touch and go. During an opening half hour of such care and attention by England's openers it might have been scripted by a team of crack lawyers, Strauss' leave-alone looked more like a hindrance than a help. It took him 19 balls to get off the mark and after 13 overs he had made all of five.

The Strauss that has emerged since he was left out of the tour of Sri Lanka before Christmas is a more cautious beast from the one who kept gully and backward point interested. But by excising the flashing blade from his repertoire, he has ironed out a weakness and sacrificed a strength. A player who four years ago cut and pulled his way to 656 runs in South Africa at an average of 72 now plays more like a left-handed Neil McKenzie, seeking to blunt attacks before he goes on the attack himself.

Gradually a semblance of fluency returned. Makhaya Ntini was driven down the ground, then clipped through midwicket. Paul Harris was chipped over square-leg following a quick-step down the pitch, and Ntini was pulled for four to bring up Strauss' fifty. One more straight-driven boundary off Ntini followed before he was caught at leg slip off Harris, but by then England needed only 50 and the morning's attrition had been forgotten.

Even so, the tactic may not be out of place in India, not least in a batting line-up which still hints at the millionaire tendencies bemoaned by Vaughan after the defeat at Headingley. And England will be just as delighted that the opening partnership between Strauss and Alastair Cook is taking shape. Their stand of 123 was the best of the three hundred partnerships between the pair and worries that they are too similar to feed off each other are fading. If Strauss can cement his place on the subcontinent, the most grateful man may just be the one who beat him to the captaincy.