Hit for six | 5 January 2017

Frankie Howerd, the great, if troubled, comedian, was once asked whether he enjoyed performing. ‘I enjoy having performed,’ he replied. Many top-level sportsmen would say something similar. The satisfaction often comes from having done, not always from doing. Performing offers great rewards, but it can also leave scars that heal slowly, and sometimes not at all.

Jonathan Trott was a good cricketer in a strong England team that beat Australia in three successive series between 2009 and 2013. Batting at No. 3, he made a century on his Test debut, and became a dependable, if minor-key player in the side that vanquished the Aussies Down Under two winters later.

Then, frightened by the view, he fell off that high wire. Returning to Australia in November 2013, he was immediately confronted by Mitchell Johnson, a left-arm bowler of ferocious pace, and lost his nerve and his place in the side. He tried to come back two years later in the West Indies, but was no longer the batsman he had been.