Trott: We must follow Cook lead

Thursday 22 November 2012

Individual and collective determination will drive England's misfiring middle order to try to follow the example set by their captain Alastair Cook in India, claims Jonathan Trott.

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David Clough in Mumbai

Opener Cook alone did himself justice among the tourists' top six, scoring more than 200 runs in the first Test – and his first as permanent captain – yet he was still unable to prevent a nine-wicket defeat in Ahmedabad.

Time is short for England to address the problems encountered by batsmen three to six, who could muster only 68 runs between them in their combined eight innings.Trott is one of those and yesterday he stressed that – if they are to do better, as they must to be competitive in the second Test in Mumbai which starts tomorrow – they need to replicate Cook's strategy against Indian spin."Everyone is individual," said Trott. "But what you can take from him is his determination and stubbornness, to say – 'This is how I play; this is how I'm going to do it; I'm not going to try to change; this is going to work for me, and this is how it's going to happen'. It did . . . and set the standard for what we as batsmen want to be able to do. I certainly want to do that. Every single one [of us] from one to nine wants to be able to do that."Trott made a first-innings duck at the Sardar Patel Stadium, followed by 17 second time round. It is 16 innings, back at Galle against Sri Lanka in March, since the previously prolific No.3 made the last of his seven Test centuries. He has fared acceptably but hardly prodigiously since then, and is setting his sights on an overdue innings of substance."You know it's possible," he said of run-scoring in the sub-Continent. "There are a lot of ifs but the crux of the matter is we're 1-0 down, and we've got to play a lot better."You never expect it to be plain sailing in India. Obviously, we got caught out in the first innings, and didn't play well. It was a good fightback in the second innings, and shows we can score big totals . . . if only we'd done it in the first innings, it would have helped."A great challenge lies ahead, and we've got some hard work to do but this team has overcome huge challenges in the last couple of years, so it would be good to add this to the collection."Trott believes it is in England's favour that there are only three days between their defeat in Ahmedabad and their chance to level the four-match series at the Wankhede Stadium."You wouldn't want a week or eight days mulling over the game; you want to get back out there and batting and crack on.Travelling to Kolkata 1-1 [for the third Test] would be great. It would be good to strike back straight away. We understand the challenge for us in these three games, but we know we can do it."

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Trott: We must follow Cook lead

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