Setting the pace: Jonathan Trott may struggle against spinners and medium-pacers on the subcontinental pitches Photo: AFPYou can face the same sort of delivery that Harold Larwood would have bowled without exhuming him. But one thing that cannot be done is to make Jonathan Trott face his own bowling on a slow pitch in Asia.
And that is what England would like to do before the World Cup: to see how Trott would bat without any pace on the ball, when delivered by a spinner or a medium-pacer like himself.
He can bat through an innings, like nobody else in this fatigued England side; he can bat until the cows come home. But could he force the pace at the knock-out stage of the World Cup?
England would never dream of going into a one-day tournament with a settled XI, but whereas in previous World Cups this has been because some of England’s one-day batsmen have been so unproductive they have had to be dropped, this time it is because Trott has made an irresistible case.
He has stopped England being dismissed in less than 50 overs by Australia, and therefore he cannot be dropped, even though those suspicions remain.
It would be so convenient if Trott can grow into the No3 position, rapidly, as a batting all-rounder.
For although he hasn’t bowled on this interminable tour until now, Trott has plenty of experience of one-day bowling and was cheerfully doing the job at the death for Warwickshire when he forced his way into the England Test side and had more urgent matters.
If he and Paul Collingwood can be relied on for 10 overs between them, every time, England will bat deep and only have to pick four bowlers out of James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Tim Bresnan, Graeme Swann and Mike Yardy.
When there is pace on the ball, Trott is fine, working all the angles on the leg side. But when he has to put pace on the ball, the options are limited.
He doesn’t do sixes: six-hour vigils, yes, but not sixes over the rope. He has yet to hit his first in Test or one-day internationals, although the slog-sweep that he unleashed during his Adelaide century could be the portent of one.
But it was when David Hussey came on with his part-time offbreaks that we had an earnest of what might await in the World Cup: not in the qualifiers against Netherlands and their like, or even against India wherever that qualifier might be staged now that Kolkata’s Eden Gardens has been stripped of its plum fixture — and (don’t forget the politics) the president of the local association taken down a few pegs.
But in a semi-final against a team packed with spinners on a turning pitch, all of England’s top three of Andrew Strauss, Matt Prior and Trott are going to labour without pace on the ball.
Even though he had posted his hundred, Trott at Adelaide failed to get a single one of Hussey’s four offbreaks off the square and chopped on the last of them.
As with all batsmen, there is one thing that cannot be coached once he has passed his teens: the ability to run down the pitch at spinners with certainty. This has to be programmed in from an early age, and is with Asian batsmen, as a rule, but not those from England and the southern hemisphere.
If England’s top order are bogged down by spin in the World Cup, the truth is that only Kevin Pietersen can bale them out. And the trouble there is that Trott and Pietersen have no history of partnerships together; two men from similar backgrounds have been like poles repulsing so far.
Their only major partnership to date ended with the poles at the same end and Pietersen run out in the Centurion Test, which England only just saved thereafter.
Trott is so absorbed in batting through an innings that ‘calling’ sometimes seems to be a distraction. But at least this is an excess of what has nowadays become a rare virtue.
Cricket World Cup 2011: Asia pace will test Jonathan Trott's staying power Cricket,World,Jonathan,Trotts,staying,power http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/8289545/Cricket-World-Cup-2011-Asia-pace-will-test-Jonathan-Trotts-staying-power.html
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