Michael Vaughan mentions Jonathan Trott’s nationality

Jonathan Trott has played once for England.  He is a South African, by which I mean a proper one, not the Andrew Strauss style “South African” with a middle-England accent gained from a childhood spent in England.  A proper South African.  So why is there so much fuss being made out of Michael Vaughan’s comments in his autobiography about him celebrating a South African victory?

Ah, that’s right, they were playing against England at the time, and he had been twelth man for England the week before.  So, a filthy traitor to the English cause will be the gist of every headline in every paper in the land.  Here’s the aforementioned inflammatory remark:

It was a sad day for English cricket that on my last day against South Africa I saw Jonathan Trott celebrating with South Africa, when the week before he had been our 12th man at Headingley.

I was going into the press conference and I saw him patting them on the back. It hit home what English cricket has become like.

What should be our independent, Non-Media-Influenced-Reaction to this – are we to expect the man to renounce all former ties to his mother-land and complete a ceremonial flag-burning initiation ritual?  Or should we be saying “what do you expect old boy, he is South African after all”?

Vaughan’s point was to highlight the fact that England have no qualms about picking foreign players in their team in the absence of any decent English ones.  Hence the “what English cricket has become like” part.  By which he means that the selectors have long since decided that they prefer to be mocked for picking foreigners than for losing cricket matches, although they managed both when they went for Darren Pattinson.

He wasn’t highlighting the act of the celebration itself – a pat on the back is hardly incriminating, opposition players often do it, and that doesn’t make them turncoats.

Ultimately, the ECB have decided that it doesn’t matter as long as Trott scores more runs than Ian Bell.  So look out for that happening this winter against…South Africa.

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