As a sports fan, you get used to saying goodbye. Heroes come and go in the time it takes to remove a bit of Blu-Tack. You become hardened, almost immune. Most of the time. Every now and then, a retirement hits you like a bullet in the back. Andrew Strauss's farewell comes into that category. The parable of the 2005 Ashes taught us that eras can end at a speed and in a manner that makes little sense; even with that knowledge, however, it hard to believe that it has come to this.

Strauss is a smart man who will have understood that, to adapt the old Enoch Powell quote, all England captaincy careers, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of sport and human affairs. Yet this ending is depressingly unbecoming. A sad ending? Fine, that's the game. But not such a grubby one.

It is unfair to say this is entirely Kevin Pietersen's fault – the England captaincy gets everyone in the end, and Strauss said it was not a factor at all – but if he cannot see "Straussy's" blood on his hands, he has an even bigger lack of self-awareness than we feared. The fact half of Strauss's farewell press conference was spent discussing someone else was unavoidable but pretty disgusting. Et tu, KP?

Strauss has been one of the best things to happen to English cricket in the Spin's lifetime, a monument of unflinching decency and underestimated talent who has almost imperceptibly enriched our lives. If there is one word that defines Strauss's career, it is probably 'equilibrium'. He rarely dealt in sexy or showy gestures, and had no inclination to distinguish between Kipling's two imposters. He was a reassuring constant and a positive force for English cricket.

When England needed a calm head, Strauss invariably provided it. On the first day of the final Ashes Test in 2005, a cacophony of nervous desperation, Strauss made a century of indecent serenity. When English cricket was in disarray after the Pietersen-Peter Moores affair, Strauss and Andy Flower restored order with the minimum of fuss and then, well ahead of schedule, provided some unimaginable highs: consecutive Ashes wins, including a stunning first triumph in Australia for 24 years, and the ascent to top of the ICC Test rankings. Along the way there were seven consecutive home Test series wins and eight out of nine overall. Those were the times of our lives.

As with most men who lead England for an extended period of time, Strauss's career will be defined by captaincy rather than batting – even if, on a personal level, he had more champagne moments than you might think: a hundred on debut, four Ashes centuries, two in one Test in Chennai in 2008, a staggering catch to dismiss Adam Gilchrist in 2005, a huge hundred against India in the last World Cup and five man-of-the-series awards in Tests (an England record he shares with Graham Gooch).

Ultimately, a Test average of 40.91 does not do justice to his ability, but when a batsman takes the England captaincy he is aware of the pact he is making and the near certain long-term sacrifice of his batting average. By the end Strauss had become a specialist in nothing scores in the 20s and 30s, the telltale sign of a scrambled mind. Yet in his early days, when his head was clearer and his soul unwearied, Strauss was a thrilling player who used a minimalist game plan – cut, pull, drive – to devastating effect. As well as that hundred on debut against New Zealand in 2004, another sign of his supreme temperament, and struck five centuries in his first 11 Tests. Three of those came during a tough tour of South Africa in 2004-05, when he batted with almost regal authority.

When Strauss first came into the side he was known as Lord Brockett, with plenty of jokes about his background and public-school education. Sometimes he was painted as a harmless, almost buffoonish posh boy – another nickname in the England dressing-room was PT, and if we tell you the P stands for Posh you can probably join the dots – yet it soon became apparent that Strauss was as tough as they come. He did not exhibit that through raised voices or ostentatious gestures, but his authority was total. When he later became captain, he had a pool of players who, with one sad exception, would have run to the ends of the earth for him. One of the many reasons he had almost everyone on side is that he had no side to him.

"Strauss is one of those guys who demand respect," said Graeme Swann in his autobiography, "and on a daily basis you never really fathom why. He just does. He always says the right things, whether it be in team meetings or press conferences, and his word is never questioned."

He was a conservative tactician, though there are many who will argue vehemently that, in the modern age, this was emphatically a good thing. The most important element of Strauss's success as captain, however, was his character. At a time when masculinity is under scrutiny like never before, Strauss offered a seriously persuasive model of what 21st century man should look like: dignified, decent, proud, humble, equable, honest, fair, selfless, intelligent, inquisitive and deceptively charismatic. He was the big brother who always said the right thing, always did the right thing, and always looked after you. With him goes one of the great eras of English cricket.

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