CRICKET ENGLAND-BANGLADESH:CRICKET HAS its days of thunder, and then, as yesterday, its soporific ones where time seems to slow down and overs drift by. It was a good crowd at Lord's for the opening day of a strangely eclectic international summer – more than half full maybe – but there was little to get the pulse racing.
Put in to bat by Bangladesh, under sullen pewter skies, England jollied along all day at around four runs an over, reaching 362 for four, which in other places at other times might have seemed a heady dash but here, for some reason, looked sluggish.
By its end, the sun out now, Jonathan Trott, regarded as dispensable to the forward planning of the England team, had seized the opportunity afforded by the enforced absence of Paul Collingwood and, at his habitual position of number three, compiled an immaculate century, the second of a Test career that began in such rich style at The Oval last year.
Trott will resume this morning on 175 and, from the very first of the 270 balls he received over almost six hours, offered not a sniff of a chance to a hard-working but largely toothless Bangladesh attack.
When he reached three figures with a punch through the offside boundary, and raised his arms in celebration, he was greeted by Kevin Pietersen with the sort of obligatory but unenthusiastic hug that he might give to a distant aunt who had turned up at Christmas. Perhaps he, like many, wondered what significance, if any, the innings carried.
What Trott has managed to do, though, as feared by anyone who believes his disintegration in South Africa is too strong a sign to ignore of mental fragility under the more intense pressures the game has to offer, is muddy the water.
It is not unreasonable to assume that, had Collingwood been fit, Trott would not have been in the squad. And that being the case, there is something perverse in him having batted at number three when, in all probability this is the key position to be decided this summer.
But not only did Trott play unobtrusively, pleasingly, bloody-mindedly well, as if just undergoing a long net against hired-in bowlers while still making a point, but he outbatted everyone else in the team.
Alastair Cook may have felt hard done by to be given lbw to a ball that looked too high, but he looked tentative for all that, while Pietersen blazed briefly through the off side, his new favourite place, before attempting to launch something too extravagant even for him and being bowled, not for the first time, by a left-arm spinner.
Earlier Trott outplayed Andrew Strauss, who reacquainted himself with international cricket as timidly as a new boy on the first day of term but went on to make 83 of a second-wicket stand of 181 before he chose the wrong ball to try to cut and chopped Mahmudullah’s off-spin on to his stumps.
Of Ian Bell the less said the better for on this form he could not time a knock-knock joke, and it was no surprise when, flat-footedly, he failed to pick up the length of the seamer Rubel Hossain and saw the ball jag down the slope and hit the top of off-stump.
In fairness to Bangladesh they stuck to their task willingly, holding back England’s progress either side of the tea interval so that Trott, his hundred attained, suddenly began to wade through treacle. The manner in which first thing a batsman’s feet move and the ball comes from the bat more often than not determines how he might fare, and after Trott had angled his first boundary to third man and then followed it by easing boundaries through extra-cover and mid-off, it was evident he was there for the long haul.
His half-century took 75 balls, his second 50 a further 58. Thereafter he disappeared into his shell, his third 50 taking 110 more balls, with only a brace of fours to go with the dozen already hit.
Bell’s dismissal, though, gave the chance to Eoin Morgan in circumstances that still required him to break away from his normal modus operandi.
His was a watchful start to Test match cricket, resolutely straight in defence, wary of attack – his first stroke of consequence, a meatily struck pull, hit Imrul Kayes, standing at short-leg, so hard on the helmet that the ball rebounded on to the stumps and the fielder was forced dizzily from the field.
Fittingly it was a reverse sweep that brought Morgan his first boundary and a roar of approval from the crowd. It seemed to settle him, and by the close, 40 not out, he was ticking away nicely, working the leg-side singles that will be his Test match bread and butter and punching out the jam through extra-cover.
The new ball is only two overs old, but get through that first thing and there is a hundred for him as well.
Lord's Scoreboard
Bangladesh won toss
ENGLAND – First Innings
A Strauss b Mahmudullah 83
A Cook lbw b Shahadat Hossain 7
J Trott not out 175
K Pietersen b Shakib Al Hasan 18
I Bell b Rubel Hossain 17
E Morgan not out 40
Extras (lb7 w5 nb10) 22
–––––
Total (4 wkts, 90 overs) 362
Fall of wickets: 1-7, 2-188, 3-227, 4-258.
To bat: Prior, Bresnan, Swann, Anderson, Finn.
Bowling: Shahadat Hossain 17-2-66-1, Robiul Islam 14-2-80-0, Shakib Al Hasan 19-1-71-1, Rubel Hossain 16-0-74-1, Mahmudullah 24-3-64-1.
