In the October issue of All Out Cricket magazine – in shops on Thursday September 8 – Jonathan Trott talks exclusively to Jo Harman about England’s rise to the top of the world rankings. Check out the magazine for the full interview, as England’s No.3 talks frankly about his transformation “from a cricketer to a professional cricketer”. In the meantime, here are some excerpts that didn’t make the final cut to whet your appetite.
What’s been the secret to England’s success in Test cricket?
In the dressing room we’ve got a group of very determined players and also a generation of very talented cricketers. In previous years England have had a lot of good individual players but I’m not sure they were all playing for each other and I think that’s what we’ve now got. That’s the most powerful thing you can get in a team. You’ll often find that a bunch of average players pulling together come out on top over individuals. I look back on the Warwickshire team of 1994; obviously they had Brian Lara but they had a few average players that made up a great team and if you talk to Dominic Ostler, Trevor Penny or Dermot Reeve, they all seemed to get the most out of their talent. We’ve got a very similar spirit in this England team, but obviously with very talented players.
Is that partly due to the support you now receive from the backroom staff that perhaps wasn’t there for past England sides?
I think we’re very fortunate that we get looked after a little bit better. It’s more of a team with the central contract system and we’ve got great support staff, everyone gets on and guys feel very comfortable coming into the changing room. I know I felt very comfortable coming in against Australia in 2009. I’d been with the development squad to India and then I went to New Zealand and just to get in amongst the national team and meet the guys was very important. You don’t have their phone number and you’re not mates with them but you know them and can have a bit of a relationship with them and feel comfortable in that environment. I remember sitting next to Straussy at The Oval; he’s the England captain and it’s my first Test match but it was very comfortable because I’d been involved in the squad at Headingley. I hadn’t played but I’d been there for four days, trained with them, played a bit of touch rugby and had dinner with them. As a new person coming in you’ve obviously got to find your place in the team. You’ve got to find your role in the changing room, whether it’s the quiet guy or whether it’s the joker taking on Swanny.
And did you take on Swanny?
No way, he talks rubbish.
You’ve had a happy knack of scoring tons on debut, for Warwickshire Seconds, Warwickshire and obviously England. What do you put that down to? Have you approached those innings any differently?
I think it’s a case of the unknown. I just go out and play. There’s obviously something there but I can’t pinpoint it. I wanted to go out there and do the best I could, but that’s true of every innings I’ve ever played so I can’t put it down to that. My debut days are probably finished but I can look back and be very proud of them.
Do you set yourself targets when it comes to scoring runs?
When I was younger I used to be really hungry and want to score thousands of runs in the County Championship, so come April I would take guard and think, ‘Jesus, I need to score 2,000 runs this season’. But I re-jigged the way I went about things and what I was happy with. A lot of people throw stats at me, like I’ve played 20-odd Test matches, scored so many hundreds, the average is this and the strike rate is that, but I all I want to do is be part of a side winning as many Test series and one-day series as possible and I’ll gage my career on how many times I’ve done that.
You’ve taken some stick in the press, despite your record. Do you pay much attention to what’s written about you?
No, not much because there’s a sort of no newspaper policy in the changing room and I try to stay away from it. I often find that the press will take something miniscule out of a positive interview in which you’ve been honest and focus on the negative. Good headlines don’t really sell papers. People want to read about people’s misfortunes and shortcomings.
Does your meticulous attention to detail translate into the rest of your life?
No. My dad said to me the other day that he didn’t realise I was so neat in the dressing room because when I first moved to Warwickshire my bat would be over there, one glove would be over there, I’d take 10 minutes finding my gear and that would put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. I decided to get more organised and when I look at my gear now, my mind is organised.
How about your house? Is your living room spotless?
It’s a mess, an absolute mess. I would say my cricket gear and my car are the neatest things around me. I hate a messy car as well, it’s just one of those things. I would hate it if there was a crisp packet on the floor. It’s got to be tidy.
And what about when you’re driving a car? Are you as patient and methodical as when you’re batting?
When I drive I don’t get out of the fast lane. I only go in the middle lane if there’s a bike or police car.
You were a relative latecomer to international cricket. Did honing your skills in county cricket stand you in good stead?
Definitely. You learn your game. When I was younger people used to say ‘learn your game, learn your game’ and I didn’t know what they were talking about. But the older you get, the more you chat to players and the more you play the game, you figure out what your role in the team should be, you get better at judging match situations and how you should go about batting in certain conditions. That all comes from county cricket.
To read Jo’s full interview with Jonathan Trott pick up the October issue of All Out Cricket, also featuring an exclusive interview with Tim Bresnan, as we chart England’s rise to the top of the Test tree.
