Wet Start - England On The Trott

Those of us with grey, longish hair and a wild look in our eye are old enough to remember Supertramp's lyrics "Oh no, it's raining again and you know its hard to pretend" but the sharper tools in the shed will remember the song ends with "C'mon you little fighter, no need to get uptighter. C'mon you little fighter and get back up again. Oh get back up again. Fill your heart again."

Late English summer rain hung around Lords all day, finally closing the day in stalemate as England limped along at two and half runs an over and India claimed both openers. Standing tall on a day when India's pacemen swung it both ways, like the Chelsea nightlife of the 1960's, was Jonathon Trott. Its hard to think of another international batsmen who plays the ball as late as Trott, which gives him that extra fraction of a second to account for the swinging ball, even if that swing is as late as Dhoni's three experts can muster. Trott escaped an early chance to Dravid at first slip and a late one which will also go against Dravid but was, in reality, Dhoni's responsibility. In between, he worked the ball with authority of his pads, using the swing to take the ball from middle stump on many occasions. When Dhoni closed him down, he hit the ball past point. For a large part of the day, he looked to be playing a different game to the rest.

He has raised 65 unbeaten with the erratic Kevin Pietersen. A highlight package of the day, which will be all English bats flailing away outside off stump, would be dominated by KP. He buzzed about the crease and flashed like a beginner, so completely undone by the skill of Praveen, Ishant and Zaheer that he was probably never a chance to edge one because he couldn't get close. He made one excursion down the track to whack Harbhajan over mid on but Dhoni quickly closed that avenue down on the basis that singles frustrate the big man. Never the less, without the partnership, England may well have been five down at the close.

Zaheer was very impressive before he left the field late in proceedings with a possible hamstring strain. Not time to panic yet, as Zaheer often has these episodes of twinges to legs and arms. Sometimes these finely tuned quick bowlers are a little on the prima donna side. Cook was deceived by a ball that was angled in but didn't swing and found himself well back on his sticks with only his pads as a line of defence. It was a clever deception. Strauss was pressurised through the shortened first session by the ball being full and moving both ways so when Zaheer bounced him after lunch, Strauss launched into the pull shot, succeeding only in top edging to Ishant at fine leg. Its a shot which has bought the England captain undone often in his career but as he scores many, many runs from the shot, like Ian Chappell, it stays in his armoury. Ricky Ponting adopts the same reasonable strategy but alas for Ricky, his eyes and reflexes are no longer up to the task.

Praveen was superb and used the conditions wonderfully well. Should they stay fit, the Indian pace men could well dominate the opposition three because their control in great conditions was remarkable. Trott's performance becomes even more impressive, in the light of the quality of the Indians. India must hold their catches, a possible small chink which England must take advantage of.

Intriguing.