May 28, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 22, 1429

MANCHESTER (England), May 27: Andrew Strauss, whose 106 at Old Trafford guided England to their successful chase of 294 to beat New Zealand in the second Test on Monday, has backed his struggling team-mates’ form in spite of their continued failure to post big totals.

England haven’t made 400 in their first innings since the Chester-le-Street Test against West Indies in 2007 (11 Tests ago) and although they bounced back to beat New Zealand in the winter, there is a concern their batsmen have lost the fluency which marked their game three or four years ago.

“It’s hard work when you’re not scoring as many runs as you want to,” Strauss said. “I didn’t realise how hard it was until I went through it. From my point of view I’m very lucky to have got the chance to come back and show I wasn’t a spent force and had an opportunity in the side when some people thought that I shouldn’t be in there.

“It’s very much the case with the guys that are struggling a bit at the moment, but they’ll come through it, there’s no doubt about that. You only have to look at the records of the guys in the top six to see we’ve got a very strong batting line-up.”

Paul Collingwood (24) and Ian Bell (21) saw England to their target on Monday with an unbroken stand of 46, but both have struggled with their form.

Coincidentally, Collingwood’s last hundred was made against West Indies at Chester-le-Street while in this series, Bell has scores of 16, 8 and an unbeaten 21 on Monday.—Agencies