Andrew Strauss is set to marry again seven years after his first wife Ruth tragically died of lung cancer.
The cricket legend, 48, will tie the knot with his partner Antonia Linnaeus-Peat, 30, on December 17 in Franschhoek, South Africa.
Strauss revealed on the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast that only families had been invited to the ceremony in the small town famous for its wine, located around 50 miles east of Cape Town.
The former England captain will not be in Australia for the Ashes series, which begins next week, because of his upcoming wedding to Linnaeus-Peat.
Strauss and Linnaeus-Peat were first spotted together in public two years ago after leaving an exclusive restaurant in London, understood to have been in a relationship already for several months.
The couple were also seen together in the Royal Box at this summer’s Wimbledon Championships, joining a host of sports stars on day six from footballer Jamie Redknapp to Olympics hero Dame Laura Kenny.
England cricket legend Andrew Strauss, 48, is set to marry his girlfriend Antonia Linnaeus-Peat, 30, next month
The couple are pictured at this summer’s Wimbledon Championships in the Royal Box
She grew up in Hong Kong and attended £40,000-a-year St Mary’s Calne school for girls
Linnaeus-Peat, who used to work as a PR executive and now is a company director of Linnaeus Fine Art Advisory Limited, grew up in Hong Kong and attended £40,000-a-year St Mary’s Calne school for girls.
The former England captain’s new marriage comes seven years after his first wife Ruth McDonald died aged 46 following a battle with a rare form of lung cancer on December 29, 2018.
Married to Ruth for 15 years, Strauss had two sons with the Australian actress, Samuel and Luca, who are now aged 19 and 17 respectively.
Shortly after his wife’s upsetting death, Strauss founded the Ruth Strauss Foundation in her memory in 2019, a charity which supports families facing the death of a parent from the illness and funds vital research into non-smoking lung cancers.
The foundation’s annual ‘Red for Ruth’ campaign has become a regular fixture in the cricketing calendar, with players, coaches and fans encouraged to wear red in support of the charity during an England Test match in July.
Strauss has been open about how his wife’s death just days after Christmas in 2018 wholly changed his outlook on life.
Sharing how grief has affected him in a 2023 interview with The Telegraph, he said: ‘Our time is limited, and therefore I need to be more conscious about what I do and don’t do.
‘This might mean experiencing things that weren’t appealing to me before, or saying no to things even though I don’t want to let people down. But most of all, it means keeping the people most important to me happy.’
The marriage, which will take place before England’s first Ashes Test against Australia, comes seven years after his first wife Ruth (right) died aged 46 following a battle with lung cancer
Strauss and Ruth had two sons, Samuel (right) and Luca (left) – pictured in May 2022
The Ruth Strauss Foundation’s annual ‘Red for Ruth’ campaign has become a regular fixture in the cricketing calendar, with players and staff encouraged to wear red in support of the charity
The former England captain went on to urge others to open up more in a message of support for those struggling.
‘It’s is still far too much of a taboo,’ he added. ‘Many people feel very uncomfortable, not knowing what to say to those who are going through it. They shudder, almost wanting to pretend that it’s not going on.
‘It’s absurd, because we’re all going to be touched by death in life. Grief still feels very beneath the surface to me. And that has to change, because otherwise there will be people devoid of support or knowledge.
‘You can be in your own little room grieving, without knowing where to turn.’
In a statement revealing Ruth had passed away, Strauss said in 2018: ‘Anyone who has met Ruth will know how loving, caring and passionately protective she was of her family and it gives us huge comfort that she was in Australia, the land of her birth, surrounded by those who love her, in her final moments.’
