By now you’ve probably read about England’s Ashes warm-up fixture against Essex in 2013 (if you haven’t, here you go).
Ahead of the 2009 Ashes, it was Warwickshire who England faced off against in a first-class fixture at the start of July, with the county side featuring a number of names that were about to become a lot more familiar.
England batted first and tasked with facing a new-ball attack of Chris Woakes and Boyd Rankin – both of whom would go on to makes Ashes debuts a few years later – Alastair Cook was the headliner in his side’s first innings, finishing on 124 off just 190 balls. The man to remove him? Jonathan Trott!
Elsewhere, Keith Barker – now a veteran of the county circuit at Hampshire – collected his maiden first-class wicket with the dismissal of Paul Collingwood as no other England batter reached fifty.
After declaring on 290-8, an England attack of James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Andrew Flintoff, Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar went to work: Warwickshire were bowled out for just 102, with Trott top-scoring with 19. Anderson, England’s attack leader, finished with figures of 5-34. Monty Panesar, who would make his last Test appearance at home later that same month, took 3-10.
When England batted again, it was Ravi Bopara who took the lead, opening the batting and retiring on 104, his fourth first-class hundred of the year after three hundreds in three Tests against West Indies.
After half-centuries for Collingwood and Matt Prior, England declared on 319-3 and reduced the bears to 27-3 in response before the match came to its conclusion. Trott finished unbeaten on 14 and not long after he’d be in the England side: three County Championship hundreds after this fixture led to a debut in a fifth Test decider at The Oval. A century against Australia followed and kicked off an illustrious red-ball international career.
