The times they are a-changin’

The mood was that of a happy festival,with several Englishmen raising toasts to their fantastic deeds over the previous season. And Trott was in no mood to rub salt into India’s multiple wounds. Instead of writing them off,the kind-at-heart Trott called the erstwhile World No.1 Test side ‘dangerous’. But everyone present at the ceremony and also those who followed the England tour for two months knew that Trott was just being polite. With just one match — the fifth ODI at Cardiff — left for this tour to end,the Indians are yet to register a win,and have so far been as ‘dangerous’ as a pet poodle.

Top of the podium

This ICC award function was in many ways representative of the blowing winds of change in world cricket. Joining Trott under the spotlight on England’s night was Alastair Cook,who won the Test Player of the Year award. Last year,the winners were Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag; now it was Trott and Cook. The two personified the change at the top of the podium,registering the fact that England were indeed the new India. But many others,including legends such as Curtly Ambrose (who was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame) suggested that England could even be the new Australia. Momentarily splitting with his modesty,Cook acknowledged the fact that England wished to rule world cricket for a while,and that long-term domination is something they take very seriously in their dressing room.

Apart from the winners,there was yet another change of trend that surfaced at the glittering evening. As Trott and Cook bagged the two most important accolades of the night,world cricket was finally acknowledging and awarding a batting style that is more substance and less style. Both these England batsmen epitomise the good old stodgy kind of willowship,one that gives as much importance to staying rooted at the crease as it does to scoring runs. The extravagance of Sehwag and the elegance of Tendulkar were literally replaced by the efficiency of Trott and and the profitability of Cook. Ugly truly was the new beautiful.

Fans don’t jump road dividers and fly through the turnstiles worrying that they might miss a Trott pull or a Cook drive. But more often than not,they leave the ground at stumps satisfied with the fact that England are in a very strong position. Whenever Trott and Cook end up batting an entire day,ardent English supporters are invariably armed with stories of a famous England win to bore their grandchildren with.

Cook’s cover drive or his cut between point and gully don’t have the grace of a David Gower,nor is Trott as flamboyant as the other,more famous South African in the England side, Kevin Pietersen. When Cook scored 294 at Edgbaston last month,Shane Warne called it the most boring day of Test cricket he had ever seen. When the Sri Lankans were touring England just before India arrived,Michael Atherton had termed Cook a ‘plodder’.

The determinator

As for Trott,there is this joke in the England dressing room that sums him up. Apparently,they feel Trott is less a terminator and more a determinator. He isn’t a batsman who scores runs when the sun is shining,the bowling attack is jaded and the pitch is flat. Send him to check a batting collapse on a tricky wicket and in adverse conditions,Trott will return like a Rambo to the pavilion,eight out of 10 times. His idiosyncrasies at the crease (he endlessly scratches the pitch surface with his bat) has irritated many a bowler. But the irritation is also because the wide bat almost never allows the ball to pass.

Both Cook and Trott believe in spending long and serious hours at the nets. And with the old masters of marathon knocks Graham Gooch and Andy Flower always ready to assist them,it’s a marriage made in heaven. The two coaches have more than just enhanced their hunger for runs,and that has made their appetites monstrous.

Here’s one for the trivia junkies that perfectly explains the batting approach of the two England batsmen. With a combined experience of 95 Tests and 69 ODIs between them,Trott and Cook have a sum total of 7 sixes between them; the former having not hit any. It may be wrong to compare,but last year’s ICC winners Tendulkar and Sehwag have a combined count of 470 sixes in Tests and ODIs.

Trott and Cook are a throwback to England’s great era when playing in the air was considered philistine and ungentlemanlike. Hitting the ball along the carpet was how the real gentlemen played. Just like that epoch,these are also glory days for English cricket.