The theory was around yesterday morning that England could only win through an innings of bullying dominance. In other words, that it came down to Kevin Pietersen. Instead, true to a crazily contrary game, it was decided by the manipulating, disorientating batting of Pietersen's polar opposite.

To say Andrew Strauss is fond of New Zealand understates the case crassly. He owes his Test career, the making of it and the saving of it, to centuries against them. Now, just when his old, unwitting allies were threatening an unscripted win, he made another that could take his career to new heights.

New Zealand must inevitably blame themselves for a defeat that would have been infeasible had they shown less complacency in their second innings. But they might still have won if Strauss had not played with the authority of a man on familiar territory.

In cricket, past form against any given opponent is an underestimated weapon. The batsman's confidence is naturally buoyed, the bowlers' expectations equivalently deflated. Yesterday, New Zealand's acquiescence against Strauss was indicative of his record against them.

Strauss does not impose himself in any physical sense. Not like Pietersen, who can intimidate with a strut, a glare, a giant stride down the pitch or a single stroke of thunderous unorthodoxy. He employed them all here before running himself out and stalking off, infuriated at extending a run of one fifty in 15 Test innings.

The methods of Strauss are milder, more subtle. Just like the man himself, who can no more be imagined marrying a pop star, rucking to earn an extra million from a month in India or discussing “getting hammered” in magazine articles than becoming the next Prime Minister.

Full of face, receding of hairline, ready of smile, Strauss has the avuncular look of everybody's favourite team-mate. He even wears the red and blue of England on his bat handle.

There are times when he comes over as almost too nice and you long to inject a spot of rascally malice into him. But yesterday it was the gentle man who prevailed, a triumph for craft over chutzpah.

Until his final innings in New Zealand last winter, Strauss was without a Test century in 30 starts, a run that had led to him being cast aside in both forms of the international game. The 177 he made in Napier not only won a series but also restored his selectorial privileges, a process he had initiated with a spell of provincial cricket in, you've guessed it, New Zealand.

Strauss, reflecting on the still precarious progress of his rehabilitation, said recently: “The really useful players in an international team are the ones who can absorb that pressure and come up with the goods.” Nothing revelatory, perhaps, bar the suggestion that he felt ready to do just that.

Here at Old Trafford, he top-scored in both innings of a game that had more outrageous plots and twists than an episode of Midsomer Murders. The striking thing about yesterday's effort was that Strauss did not look like getting out, which was alien to the cavalier spirit of the match.

From the first ball, he set himself to nudge the ball into gaps, to rotate the strike and to deny New Zealand the stranglehold of the previous day. Against Daniel Vettori, he batted outside off stump, smothering the sometimes prodigious spin, working the angles. He ventured little extravagant, nothing spectacular. This was an innings that called to mind Graham Thorpe or, for those of longer memories, John Edrich.

When he reached 100 with a typically nurdled single, he punched the air repeatedly with his left glove. Afterwards, he admitted he had “forgotten how enjoyable it is to play for England”.

The pity is that so few were here to see it. Considering this was a dry Bank Holiday in Manchester and that a captivating game was certain to finish, possibly thrillingly, it was surely disappointing that this venerable old ground was only a third full.

This was probably the last day of Test cricket at Old Trafford for four years, a period Lancashire must use to improve its dated facilities, erase the grubby and the grim. But, despite its lack of style, this is a venue that plays to the strength of Test cricket, with pitches that reward excellence and crowds that appreciate it.

Just before lunch yesterday, a knot of spectators huddled against the gales broke into a Bon Jovi chorus to recognise England were halfway to their total. The song was Livin' On A Prayer. Only Strauss, in his zone of conviction, seemed to think there was no need for such measures.