The lady with her fingers crossed…

May 20th 2004 saw me at Lord’s Ground for the first Test Match of the summer England v New Zealand. The run up to the match had been confused by England Captain Michael Vaughan twisting his right knee in net practice and the uncapped, but promising, Middlesex opener, Andrew Strauss – not in the original 13 man squad – was called up as cover.

On the morning of the match before the eleven was announced I went to the members’ shop and started chatting to a friend wondering whether young Strauss would make his debut. One of the staff heard me and said, pointing to a lovely looking young woman by the window, “That lady might know!” I looked at her and she smiled beautifully and held up her right hand with her fingers crossed.

The young woman was Ruth McDonald an actress from Australia who Strauss had married the previous October. Ruth was a few years older than Andrew but it was a love match. Well her fingers crossed worked and Andrew did indeed play, Not only play but he scored a first innings century and could have had one in the second as well if there hadn’t been what Wisden described as a “Keystone Cops mix up” run out when he was on 83.

Strauss’s international career had started spectacularly, cheered on of course by Ruth who eventually uncrossed her fingers. The rest, as they say, is history. Strauss played in 100 Test Matches in half of which he was Captain.

Ruth Strauss was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2018 and died later that year. In recent times Andrew has driven the “Ruth Strauss Foundation” which offers emotional and practical support to families when a parent is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness. At Lord’s last week “Red for Ruth Day” raised hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations for its work. I was there and my own thoughts drifted back nineteen years to the lady with the crossed fingers…