Former England coach David Lloyd has urged Jonathan Trott to adopt evasion rather than aggression to counter the Australian bowling plans that have notably quelled his influence in recent Ashes Tests.
Bumble urges Trott to duck trouble
Trott, a mainstay of England’s batting with 18 centuries and an average above 47 from his 48 Test appearances, is under intense scrutiny for his vulnerability to short pitched bowling.
In his past 12 innings against the Australians he has failed to reach 60 and has averaged just 26, and rival batsman David Warner yesterday labelled his capitulation to another short ball during the first Test as “pretty poor and pretty weak”.
Lloyd, a former opening batsman who famously scored an unbeaten double century in his second Test but whose career ended with England’s 1974-75 Ashes demise to Ian Chappell’s team spearheaded by tearaway pace duo Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson offered sage advice to Trott.
“I think it’s dead simple” Lloyd said. “He’s not going to play the (hook) shot, he’s not a hooker, and if you look at some great players and I talk about Ian Chappell he was a hooker – he would take it on.
“But Jonathan Trott is not renowned as a hooker, so put it away. Get rid of it and then you can tire a bowler if he keeps whacking it in there and you’re not playing.
“But it’s a mind game, and it’s a brilliant game to play when you have a collar and tie and sat in an air conditioned room, it’s fantastic.
“But when you’re out there and you’ve got one chance, you’ve got to work out very quickly ‘how am I going to cope with this guy, how I going to survive and how am I going to score?’.”
Lloyd identified the extra pace and bounce offered by Australian pitches and the added spice that Mitchell Johnson – who claimed Trott’s wicket twice in similar fashion and for similarly low scores in the first Test – as the key differences since the previous Ashes series that England won three-nil.
And he counselled the rest of England’s top order to consider the Trott plan in order to curb Australia’s clear tactic of targeting them with hostile, short-pitched bowling
“The main answer to me with the quick bowlers is that you’ve got two choices – you’re either going to play it or you’re going to get under it,” he said.
“Now if you play it and you hit it up, these boundaries (on Australian grounds) are enormous and you are going to find a fielder.
“So I think the way to do it at express pace, if they can, is to get underneath it and let it go.”