Andrew Strauss

Lest we forget, in Napier just 18 months ago, Strauss was poised to slink back to county cricket, never to return. It was, he relates in his forthcoming book, "the only time in my life I have struggled to sleep". The key to his subsequent 177 was a first-innings duck: "With only one innings left I felt it was too much to expect to pull it out of the bag, so I was just going to enjoy my last innings for England." In other words, he relaxed. Encouraged by Paul Collingwood, he also reclaimed the cut and the pull, the once-fruitful strokes his cautious, fretful self had sheathed. As Kris Kristofferson so deftly put it, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

"More than anything, performing in those circumstances made me think that when the going gets tough, that is what motivates and brings out the best in me," reflects Strauss. "And, when you are armed with that knowledge, it gives you huge confidence for difficult times in the future." Nothing particularly earth-shattering, sure, but this realisation was no less valuable for its familiarity. Come The Oval last month - and yes, it does seem a sight longer than that - England were pulling the Ashes out of the bag. That they bounced back not once but twice in that series - from the near-disaster of Cardiff to victory at Lord's, from humiliation at Headingley to final triumph at The Oval - can be attributed to many factors, but none was more important, surely, than the tone set by Strauss, at the crease and in the field.

There is a bit of him in each of the other contenders. Like Gambhir, Strauss possesses the mental fibre and inner confidence to stare down adversity and drag a career from the precipice. Like Johnson, he can dominate opponents. Like Dhoni, he is a leader by vivid example. None of those rivals, though, has had quite as much to contend with this year as Strauss. Post-Stanford, post-Pietersen v Moores, he took the reins when English cricket was looking sicker than John Cleese's ex-parrot. That it is now widely perceived to be in polite if not rude health is no mean feat. Just don't mention the words "limited" or "overs" in close proximity.