Hot Trott sticks out on elite list
SPORTS people are routinely placed on a pedestal. They are portrayed as the best representations of humanity – alpha specimens, physically and mentally unbreakable.
When they run out to perform, we clap. When they cast their spells on the field of play, we cheer. We crave a photograph alongside them or an autograph as if they are somehow floating above the rest of us.
In a sense they are. They exist in a rarefied space many dream of but few are capable of inhabiting. They are the modernday champions, successors to the line of
Milo and Theagenes.
So when they find themselves diminished by illness, the impact can be numbing.
It is like a giant oak being felled. Tom Smith
THE most surprising element of Ben Stokes being named ICC Player of the Year is not that he won the award – it was after all a no-brainer – but a reminder that Jonathan Trott achieved the same feat in 2011.
Trott is the outlier in a cricket ‘who’s who’ to attain the status of the world’s best, which also includes Sachin Tendulkar,Virat Kohli, Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis, Steve Smith and, the other Englishman on the list, Andrew Flintoff.
In 12 Tests in 2011, habitual crease-scratcher Trott hit 1,042 runs at an average of 65, scoring four centuries. He also added 1,064 runs in 24 ODIs at 48. Undeniably, he was hot.
But his name sticks out in much the same way as Dion Dublin’s does in the list of Premier League Golden Boot winners.