Four years ago, the Oval beckoned England and Australia inside its gates with the Ashes scoreline standing at 1-1 and a whole nation, it seemed, clamouring for an experienced batsman to be reintroduced to the England side in place of the shattered Ravi Bopara.
Everyone from WG Grace to Mark Ramprakash appeared to warrant a mention. Anyone but Jonathan Trott apparently, who, it was easy to forget, had been an unselected member of the squad for the fourth Test at Headingley.
But Trott was picked. He was next in line. He had known as much ever since his Warwickshire team-mate Ian Bell had been summoned to replace the injured Kevin Pietersen earlier in the series. Pecking orders, rather than revolving doors, have counted in recent years. As Trott says: “Since I’ve been involved, the selectors have always made a big thing of continuity. So the selection talk before the game didn’t affect me.”
That it did not. On debut Trott made 41 in the first innings, and then, gloriously, 119 in the second as England regained the Ashes.
Since then, he has totted up 3,645 Test runs at an average of 47.33. Such a fixture has he become at No 3 that it seems a whole lot longer than four years since that stunning arrival on the big stage. To Trott, though, it is as clear as yesterday. He can still vividly recall the moments before his maiden Test ton.
“Yeah, there was a moment on 97 when the ball rolled backwards past my legs and went close to the stumps,” he says. “Then I was on 99, the field was in, (Ben) Hilfenhaus was running in, and I thought I am definitely going to get a Test hundred. I had no doubt about it. I remember clipping behind square and running down to the striker’s end, and I remember whacking my bat down so that the umpire knew I’d crossed the line before going back for a second run (the ball went for four anyway). I remember little things like that which you don’t see on TV. They are special, I suppose.”
He can also remember the start of that innings and being on eight facing the first ball of day three bowled by Peter Siddle. The ball exploded off a length. “There was a big appeal for caught behind,” he says. “I didn’t hit the ball. If you look back you think, crikey, it was an amazing decision (by umpire Asad Rauf) because it looked out. There was a big sound which was the ball hitting my back leg. I knew I hadn’t hit it, but you look back on things like that.”
He clearly knows that there has been talk about his form and that of captain, Alastair Cook. “There is still a game to go. Alastair and I might get some runs and what will you write about thenIJ” he jousts.
Trott is not prickly, but he is keen to defend Cook’s captaincy against criticism from Shane Warne. And too right, too. It is not just Warne. Others have waded in.
Cook has captained England in 15 Tests. They have won nine of them, and lost only one. They have won a series away in India and won the Ashes.
We have been down this road of perceived conservatism before with Andrew Strauss. The game has changed. Batsmen like to score these days. Stop them doing so, and they might succumb. A boundary fielder, immediately meaning four runs are reduced to one, might be more influential than another catcher.
Conventional field placings have stood the test of time for a reason, something the supposedly more ‘inventive’ Michael Clarke might want to consider, when pondering Ian Bell’s plethora of runs to third man in this series (143 of his 500). “I think it is quite amusing that he (Warne) tries to criticise Alastair’s captaincy when we are 3-0 up in the series,” says Trott. “It’s quite baffling, but everyone is entitled to their views. Alastair’s record speaks for itself as a captain.”
And it’s not as if Cook’s wholly passive, Trott pinpointing his positioning of a short leg for Clarke at Durham, with Clarke bowled the next ball by Stuart Broad. “I thought that was really inventive,” says Trott.