Despite being made to follow-on at Lord's, the tourists -- who saw captain Mahela Jayawardene lead their resistance with a second innings century -- batted for over 14 hours to ensure that the series opener ended in stalemate.

But they were helped on their way by a shoddy England display which saw nine catches in all dropped during the course of the match.

And England opening batsman Strauss said it was their fallible fielding and not the leadership of Flintoff that meant the side were heading into next week's second Test at Edgbaston still all square.

"The slip fielding aspect of last week was very disappointing from our point of view," said Strauss.

"In the end we had 28 chances to take 20 wickets and we didn't do it," he added after becoming the president of the junior section of the Primary Club, a cricketers' charity which assists blind players and whose membership is largely drawn from players who've been out first ball in any form of the game.

"From my point of view, the two I dropped I saw all the way in and I suppose I misjudged the pace of them," said Strauss.

"To dwell on it too long would be wrong, though, because the nuts and bolts of the game -- the batting and the bowling -- were in brilliant shape," explained Strauss, speaking at The Oval on Thursday.