THE FINAL INDIGNITY
Trott bags another duck before Cook leads the rescue act
THERE have been signs that Alastair Cook has been back to his best on this tour, more fluent than he has been at any time during a traumatic two-year wait for a Test century. Yesterday he was very much back in the old routine.
On a day that saw Jonathan Trott surely reach the end of the road as an England player with his third duck of this series, Cook held his side together when they badly needed him to on the first day of this final Test.
When Cook won what seemed an important toss all was set fair for England to make West Indies ‘ crack like they did in the last Test’ and earn the series win that would set their captain and coach Peter Moores up for an Ashes summer.
Yet they struggled on what was not exactly the hard, fast wicket expected at the Kensington Oval.
Cook, with his sixth half century in his last nine Test innings, kept them afloat at this most iconic of Test venues.
How England needed their captain after they had got off to the worst possible start when Trott turned after his early dismissal, head down, to begin the long and lonely walk to the Garfield Sobers Pavilion, his race as an England player surely run.
There will be one more innings for him but nothing he could possibly do then will be enough to erase the memory of his horrible, painful dismissal.
This was the type of scenario that Trott would have once relished and used to his absolute advantage in churning out one of his inevitable hundreds.
Not now, not after 18 months spent trying to battle back from the trauma of Brisbane when he was forced to walk out on an Ashes tour after the first Test.
This time Trott was once again frenetic at the crease, once again nervy in his unaccustomed role of opener after three ducks already on this tour.
Two balls from the pacey Shannon Gabriel were handled reasonably well before the first short ball he received had Trott in several minds.
He could only fend the delivery off meekly into the hands of square leg.
That was game — and England career — surely over after 52 Tests and three into his comeback.
There will be those who rush to say ‘I told you so’ and it was certainly a gamble to bring Trott here in the first place, but he deserved the whole of this series before England made a decision on him.
Cook wanted his proven class and experience on tour once he had been given the medical allclear after the productive work he has completed with sports psychologist Steve Peters.
Trott’s record earned him this chance.
Sadly, he has not been able to take it and he is clearly too vulnerable, both mentally and technically, to have any chance of facing Australia with any success this summer.
It will not matter if he scores runs in the second innings here nor if he carries on this season where he left off for Warwickshire and the Lions.
Test cricket is on a completely different level and the sad reality is that Trott has been found wanting here, irrespective of the halfcentury he scored in the first innings of the second Test in Grenada.
There is no disgrace in that. Trott can look back on a distinguished career with his adopted country but the statistics will tell you that he was already in decline before that fateful Ashes trip to Australia.
His inclusion in the West Indies was justifiable because there was still a chance he could recreate his old metronomic reliability.
But he can now go back to Warwickshire with his head held high and with a job still to do for them.
England as expected had remained unchanged after Ben Stokes passed a fitness test on his injured back but they must have quickly been wondering if they had missed a trick by not picking a second specialist spinner in Adil Rashid.
There was pace and carry with the new ball but soon this pitch reverted to type and there was first day spin for Veerasammy Persaul, in for the injured Devendra Bishoo, and Marlon Samuels, who was employed an hour into the Test.
It must be said that if England did not trust Rashid here then perhaps they will not pick him anywhere, for all their protestations that he has ‘turned a corner’ and is now bowling quickly enough to succeed in international cricket.
The short ball that did for Trott was a rare one above waist height.
But it was pace that did for Gary Ballance and Ian Bell in the form of Jason Holder, last seen being stretchered off in Grenada with a damaged ankle.
It was Persaul, though, who plunged England into deeper trouble when he forced an impregnable looking Joe Root to edge behind after he had consolidated the innings with Cook.
Cook then found an able partner in Moeen Ali who added 98 with him, reaching his half century by planting Samuels into the stands and displaying his class and poise before he was run out for the second consecutive Test.
This time, though, Moeen could justifiably look at his captain and wonder why he called him for such a sharp single to frustratingly nip such a promising stand in the bud.
Clearly, England face a battle here to make sure they win this series and it is a battle that looks to have claimed its first casualty in Trott.