Cricket World Cup 2011: Asia pace will test Jonathan Trott's staying power

Setting the pace: Jonathan Trott may struggle against spinners and medium-pacers on the subcontinental pitches Photo: AFP

You 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.

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Richard Keys and Andy Gray furore shows sportspeople should not underestimate power of the web

Caught out: Australia cricket captain Michael Clarke found himself under fire following an innocuous tweet Photo: AP

TV used to be a one-way process, in which old-fashioned authority figures commandeered the airwaves to dispense their so-called wisdom (and you don’t get much more old-fashioned than Keys and Gray).

All that has changed since the rise of social networking. Today, every viewer can make his or her views heard. At least, as long as they have broadband in the house.

Now that we are all connected — by Facebook, Twitter or any number of other sites — watching TV can be like going to the theatre in the Elizabethan age, when heckling and even fruit-throwing were all part of the fun.

If our TV experts are irritating or ill-informed, they will soon be ridiculed via blogs and tweets. If they say something offensive, it finds its way onto the internet within seconds. In this case, the whole process went further, as stolen footage from within Sky HQ led to the departure of both men.

The old saying that “sunshine makes the best disinfectant” has become the slogan of the Wikileaks generation. (Only, since these hackers spend most of their time in darkened rooms, they have changed the first word to “eyeballs”.)

But it is not only presenters who face trial by the court of public opinion. The world of sport, like the world of media, has taken on a Punch-and-Judy quality. Performances are dissected not only at the bar but in online chat rooms that are far more virulent and foul-mouthed than anything you will find on Sky’s cutting-room floor. The computer screen has become the latest field of play.

In many cases, our sportsmen and women are thoroughly computer-literate themselves. And a few brave souls have entered the bear-pit of Twitter - a form of pub-chat for the new millennium.

On the upside, these players or athletes can at least speak out for themselves amid the digital hubbub, rather than relying on newspapers and broadcasters to interpret for them.

But they also need to have thick skins, for a Twitter handle apparently makes them fair game for all those mean-spirited grouches who want to take a pop at them. These are the same people who would once have shouted abuse from the stands or scribbled poison-pen letters. Democracy has its flaws, after all.

Some users are slow to pick up on the power of the web. Some users are slow to pick up on the power of the web. One cricketer who revealed sensitive information on his Twitter page was surprised to receive a phone-call from his employers. “But I was only telling my friends,” he protested. His friends, who then told their friends via the “Retweet” button. Suddenly you have a career in crisis.

Others find themselves under fire for being too superficial. Last week, Ricky Ponting’s deputy Michael Clarke sent a Twitter message that read “Trying to find a date for Steve Smith to take to the AB medal [Australia’s end-of-season awards dinner] ?? You can tweet me with your expressions of interest . . .”

This apparently innocent inquiry sparked off a strong comment piece that ran across the Australian tabloids. Under the headline “Michael Clarke making a tweet of himself,” the author argued that “Surely Clarke has more pressing matters to worry about. What about scoring a few runs and captaining his side through times of turmoil?”

Clarke’s tweet was seized upon by the mainstream printed media rather than fellow users of Twitter. But the story still reflects the accelerated 24-hour news cycle, in which social networking sites have become just another way of keeping tabs on the rich and famous.

In Clarke’s case, and that of the Sky presenters, words were taken out of context and used to promote a certain image. Even if you believe that Clarke is still a party-going good-time boy (and those close to him say all that has changed), he still doesn’t deserve to be hassled over a message that took no more than 30 seconds to type.

Keys and Gray can expect less sympathy, given the number of people they have offended over the years. And yet it is hard to condone the theft of off-air footage, which is a blatant invasion of privacy.

Yes, it is a more democratic world out there, since the advent of social media and celebrity super-hackers like Julian Assange. But it is a harsher and more frightening one as well.

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