ASHES 2009: Is KP's clone hot to Trott? Abrasive Jonathan gets the nod for The Oval
PAUL NEWMAN Cricket Correspondent
England have decided that the best way to replace Kevin Pietersen for their biggest match in four years is to pick the county batsman most like him, one who has followed a strikingly similar route from South Africa to the brink of Test cricket.
Jonathan Trott, 28, who will make his England debut in the most demanding of situations in an Ashes decider, was born in Cape Town, came to England to enhance his career and has a confident, almost abrasive personality that has not always
endeared him to opponents and team-mates alike.
Sound familiar? When Pietersen first emerged as an England player late in 2004 even coach Duncan Fletcher, that most shrewd of judges, was moved to say somewhat cynically to his then captain Michael Vaughan: ‘It looks as if we’ve got Bradman coming to play for us judging by the way this fella talks.’
Cut from the same cloth: Pietersen and Trott
Pietersen may not be Bradman but he turned out to be the best England batsman of his generation and one who has been sorely missed in a series which will go down to the wire at The Brit Oval from Thursday, just as it did famously four years ago.
Then Pietersen, in his debut Test series, announced himself to the cricketing world by scoring the century at The Oval which drew the final Test and won England the Ashes.
Trott, brought in for Ravi Bopara for a must-win game with the series balanced at 1-1 but who is likely to bat in Pietersen’s place at four with Ian Bell at three, has to fill mighty big boots.
The Warwickshire man is not as talented as Pietersen but he does have a similar belief in himself, one that seems more common in those not brought up in the
English system.
It is a personality that saw eyebrows raised among his England team-mates when Trott joined them before the fourth Test humiliation at Headingley but one that just might stand him in good stead now.
Listen to Trott and you begin to hope that he could well possess what it takes to rise to the biggest of occasions after clinching his place ahead of Kent’s Rob Key by making a second-innings century for Warwickshire against Nottinghamshire.
Grounds for optimism: Trott's belief in his ability could prove telling at The Oval
Will he not be under immense pressure, making his debut against Australia in the biggest arena of them all?
‘It’s not as if they can bowl from any closer,’ said Trott yesterday. ‘They might like to target the opposition but mental toughness is part of the game and I’ve met a few challenges throughout my career and come through.
‘It’s not as though county cricket is a library when you go out to bat. I’ve done the hard yards to get here. There’s a lot of pressure that goes with the competition to get into the Test team because there are a lot of high-quality batsmen around and you have to be up there constantly pushing your name forward. For me this is now the first step.
Making the team and staying in the team are two different things and what I have done so far is probably the easier.’
He can clearly talk the talk and we will soon discover if, like Pietersen, he can walk the walk. Trott qualified for England at the end of 2006 after completing his four-year qualification period and made two low-key Twenty20 appearances against West Indies in 2007 before slipping out of the England picture.
A long talk with his Warwickshire coach and England selector Ashley Giles led to a reassessment of his goals and he has been the most prolific English-qualified batsman in all forms of the game this season. And for anyone who doubts his ‘Englishness’ Trott likes to point out that his English father lives in Surrey and he has
recently married Warwickshire press officer Abi Dollery, granddaughter of the county’s legend, Tom Dollery.
Trott’s selection is still a gamble by the selectors but one consistent with their admirable policy of continuity and one that makes much more sense than making a desperate return to Mark Ramprakash. That option was never seriously considered but Key was the front-runner to replace Bopara, who will still be picked for England’s tour of South Africa, until Trott’s timely ton on Thursday.
Five man attack: Flintoff
Andrew Flintoff’s fitness enables England to stick with the five bowler policy that gives them a better chance of bowling Australia out twice, but the big remaining question will be whether to select Monty Panesar in a two-spinner attack or stick with Stuart Broad.
Steve Harmison looks certain to play on The Oval’s bouncy track, while Graham Onions and Ryan Sidebottom are most likely to miss out.
England will today name their one-day squads, with Andrew Strauss likely to be among a group of senior players spared the trip to Belfast to play Ireland in a one-off match scheduled ridiculously soon after the last Test finishes.
That means England will need a new captain for one 50-over game and, if Paul Collingwood is also allowed to miss the game, it could mean a first competitive match in charge of England for Alastair Cook.
England’s desire to pick mainly the same squad for the two Twenty20 matches against Australia and the following seven one-day internationals could be bad news for James Foster, despite his world-class wicketkeeping in the World Twenty20.
Flintoff will be in the party but may be ruled out later if his right knee again needs surgery after The Oval, while Pietersen will be omitted from both the one-day series and the Champions Trophy which follows at the end of September because of his achilles injury.
Oval squad
Strauss (capt, Middlesex), Anderson (Lancashire), Bell (Warwicks), Broad (Notts), Collingwood (Durham), Cook (Essex), Flintoff (Lancashire), Harmison (Durham), Onions (Durham), Panesar (Northants), Prior (wkt, Sussex), Sidebottom (Notts), Swann (Notts), Trott (Warwicks).
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