Who prefers cavalier spirit to Aussie pain?

ONE of the announcements at the Oval was for a "catch of the day award", which briefly made you wonder whether someone had landed a brown trout at deep square leg.

Jonathan Trott

ONE of the big-screen announcements at the Oval was for a "catch of the day award", which briefly made you wonder whether someone had landed a brown trout down at deep square leg.

However, at least the scoreboard not moving all day could only be blamed on the weather as opposed to England's negative tactics. Alastair Cook has copped a fair bit of flak for his leadership in this series, which is a bit rich considering he will today become the first England captain since 1977 - weather assisted or not - to deny Australia a single victory in an Ashes series. Oh, for the days when we had captains who had a bit more of the cavalier spirit about them. And lost. Usually by an innings.

This has not been the most exciting of series, played on dry turning pitches specifically to fit in with England's superiority in spin and reverse swing, and there have been times when the home team's over-rate has been negative to the point of criminal.

Friday was a classic case of a full house crowd going home not entirely sure whether they ought to have been happy that England had batted comfortably enough to avoid the possibility of a follow-on, or converts to Joey Barton's opinion of Test cricket on his Twitter site. Barton eruditely opined that “sitting on the bog for 12 hours until I've lost the use of my legs would be more entertaining”, but we can perhaps forgive him for not entirely understanding a game that can go on for days without anyone kicking each other.

That was actually after day one, which was quite watchable, so you can only guess what Barton would have made of day three, when the biggest cheer of the day came when the third umpire upheld a batsman's dismissal. Not an Australian dismissal either, but that of Jonathan Trott.

There are some batsmen who score runs, whether quickly or slowly, and you never notice them at all. You leave the ground, go down to the pub and when someone asks “how did Trotty bat, then?” you end up saying “er, not sure. I just looked up and he was 135 not out.”

There is nothing in a player's contract that says he has to make his runs attractively and there are probably GPs all over the country, faced with patients registering abnormally high blood pressure, who have hit upon alternative courses of treatment this summer. “Look, I can either put you on these tablets, or advise you to go home and turn on the Test match. England are batting and Trotty's next in.” Or if England are in the field, “take a long look at Cook when he's doing his field placings. That should bring your readings down a bit”.

Just as Trott's batting is perceived as being unexciting, so Cook's captaincy is thought unadventurous. And to a large extent it is. Andy Flower never misses a chance to praise him but we shouldn't be too quick to tender that as evidence of Cook being misunderstood, as Flower clearly perceives puffing up the captain as being an essential part of his job.

However, there's a difference between being a dull and unimaginative captain and not taking risks for the sake of it. Cook and Flower will have worked out even before the series started that whatever qualities Australia's top order possessed, patience was not among them.

What was surprising to many, given that England had stated publicly that they were chasing a 4-0 win, was their selection of Simon Kerrigan and Chris Woakes for this Test. Mike Gatting has spent a career warning of the dangers of giving Australians a sniff when you have one hand round their throat, and it made no sense to give the visitors any encouragement ahead of the return series this winter. Australia, contrary to the pre-series perception, are no suckers, so why give them an even break?

Australians are never slow to get themselves fired up by perceptions of mother country arrogance and that's how their coach, Darren Lehmann, will have been portraying England's selection here.

Cook will happily keep on soaking up Shane Warne's accusations that he's a boring tactician if that's what it takes to keep winning. And in a series that's been tighter than the scoreline suggests, the difference may even be down to a tale of two captains. One of them perceived as someone with few airs and graces, presiding over a classless dressing room, and another as slightly aloof, and who moves in more elevated social circles. Cook, in fact, in charge of a team that likes him, and Clarke in charge of a team that just about puts up with him.

The Sunday Times