The no-frills run-machine
In the Independent , Stephen Brenkley recounts how Jonathan Trott, the balding, bottom-handed, risk-free shoveller of a batsman, who has never hit a six in Tests or one-dayers has worked himself up to being England's cricketer of the year.
Dustin Silgardo
25-Feb-2013
In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley recounts how Jonathan Trott, the balding, bottom-handed, risk-free shoveller of a batsman, who has never hit a six in Tests or one-dayers has worked himself up to being England's cricketer of the year.
Trott appears to have shed all needless adornments in the pursuit of his objectives, save for his extravagant preparation in the middle. It is a measure of the change in attitude towards him that his insistence on scratching out the crease, wandering down the pitch and excavating some more before being ready to bat, was once seen as an absurdly irritating piece of gamesmanship and has become an endearing affectation. That apart, Trott lacks style.
Trott may look unprepossessing, more like the watcher at a sporting event than the watched observes Derek Pringle in the Daily Telegraph, but it probably says more about our prejudices in our image conscious world than it does about Trott, who in any case gave us a grandstand view of his potential on his Test debut, when he made a nerveless hundred against Australia at the Oval.
England’s extraordinary win at Cardiff, the first time they have won three Tests in a row by an innings since beating New Zealand in 1958, has produced a spike in ticket sales for the Lord’s Test, which begins on Friday.
Of course the prospect of Trott grinding out another big hundred might be seen as a counter attraction. But if you enjoy seeing England win, as they have largely done over the past year, then the two have become closely entwined.
Dustin Silgardo is a former sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo