A compact left-hander with a preference for pummelling the ball square off the back foot with a crunching cut, Andrew Strauss has worked out a superb technique for Test cricket. He put early problems against Shane Warne behind him to make two hundreds in the epic 2005 Ashes series, and added another big one (161) in 2009 to set up England's first victory over the old enemy at Lord's since 1934. Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart, by contrast, only ever managed one century apiece against Australia.